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oil ,0 H IT F O S T E If 



GEMS or BEAUTY. 



FROM THB 



WEITINGS OF JOHIf FOSTER: 



TOaBTHBB WITH BIB OXLKBBi.TBI} 



ESSAY ON DECISION OF CHARACTER. 



Miti) a f ortxa(t on %Utl 



NEW YORK: 
DERBY & JACKSON, 119 NASSAU ST, 

CINCINNATI : — H. W. DERBY it CO. 
1851. 



D*^ 






Entbbbd according to Act of Congreea, m the year 1857, b/ 

DERBY & JACKSON, 

In tht Clerk't Office of the DUtrict Court of the United StAtes, for the SoDtheni Dwtrift ot 

New York. 



Mrs. Hennen Jennings 
April 26, 1933 



W*. H. TiNsoN, Stereotyper. Georgb Rumm.l k Co., Printer*. 



PREFACE. 



Introducing Foster to the church at Frome, Robert Hall 
says: "His manner is not very popular, but his conceptions 
are most extraordinary and original ; his disposition very amia- 
ble, his piety unquestionable, and his sentiments moderately 
orthodox — about the level of Watts and Doddridge." In an- 
other communication to the same church, he pronounces him 
a " young man of the most extraordinary genius." At a later 
period he said of Foster's writings, "They are like a great 
lumber-wagon loaded with gold." 

The eminent American reviewer of his "Life anl Corre- 
spondence," ranking him with Hall, says: "Of the English 
minds that have departed from our world within a few years, 
none have excited a deeper interest, or wielded for a season a 
loftier power, than John Foster and Robert Hall." And Har- 
ris, the distinguished author of " Prize Essays," reviewing the 
same work, says : " He will retain the reputation of gifts that 

have rarely fallen to the lot of mortals." 

lii 



CONTENTS- 



CHAPTER I. 
Existence, Attributes, Works, and Providence of God, . 53 



CHAPTER II. 

The Evidences of Religion— The Sources, Prejudices and 

Tendencies of Skepticism, etc., .... 67 



CHAPTER III. 

The Law of God— Its Holiness, Comprehensiveness, Ap- 
plications and Evasions, 86 

CHAPTER lY. 
Individual and Social Depravity of Man, .... 98 

CHAPTER V. 
Christianity— Its Doctrines and Applications, . . . HO 

CHAPTER VI. 
The Obligations and Duties of Christianity, . . . 187 



▼1 ^ CONTENTS. 

PAan 
CHAPTER VII. 

Of Man — The Formation of Character — Its "^Sources and 
Diversitie^ — Popular Ignorance and the Diffusion of 
Knowledge, 1^6 

CHAPTER VIII. 

Youth — its Advantages and Perils — Domestic Life and 

Virtues — Education of Children, .... 180 

CHAPTER IX. 

Human Life — Its Frailty and Brevity — Future Life — Its 
Mysteries and Revelations — Persuasives to a Chris- 
tian Life, 199 

CHAPTER X. 
Places, Nations, Men and Books, 224 

CHAPTER XI. 
Passion, Affection, Sensibility and Sentiment, . . . 264 

CHAPTER XII. 

Observations upon Nature, Natural Objects and Scenes, 

Analogies, etc., 267 

CHAPTER XIII. 
Miscellanies, . • • • 284 



FOSTER'S ESSAY 

ON DECISION OF CHAKACTEK. 



LETTER I. 

JUT DEAR FEIKND, 

We have several times talked of this bold quality and 
acknowledged its great importance. Without it, a human 
being, with powers at best but feeble and surrounded by 
innumerable things tending to perplex, to divert, and to 
frustrate their operations, is indeed a pitiable atom, the 
sport of divers and casual impulses. It is a poor and dis- 
graceful thing, not to be able to reply, with some degree 
of certa,infy, to the simple questions, What will you be? 
Wiiat will you do ? 

A little acquaintance with mankind will supply number- 
less illustrations of the importance of this qualification. 
You will often see a person anxiously hesitating a long time 
between diflferent, or opposite determinations, though im- 
patient of the pain of such a state, and ashamed of the 
debUity. A faint impulse of preference alternates toward 
the one, and toward the otl^er ; and the mind, while thug 
held in a trembling balance, is vexed that it cannot get 
some new thought, or feeling, or motive; that it has not 
more sense, more resolution, more of anything that would 
save it from envying even the decisive instinct of brutes. 
It wishes that any circumstance might happen, or any per- 
son might appear, that could deliver it from the miserable 
suspense. 

In many instances, when a determination is adopted, it 
is frustrated by this temperament. A man, for example, 
resolves on a journey to-morrow, which he is not under an 
absolute necessity to undertake, but the inducements ap- 
pear, this evening, so strong, that he does not think it 



8 toster's essay on 

possible he can hesitate in the morning. In the morning, 
however, these inducements have unaccountably lost much 
of their force. Like the sun that is rising at the same time, 
they appear dim through a mist ; and the sky lowers, or 
he fancies that it does, and almost wishes to see darker 
clouds than there actually are; recollections of toils and 
fatigues, ill repaid in past expeditions, rise and pass into 
anticipation; and he lingers, uncertain, till an advanced 
hour determines the question for him, by the certainty that 
it is now too late to go. 

Perhaps a man has conclusive reasons for wishing to 
remove to another place of residence. But when he is 
going to take the first actual step towards executing his 
purpose, he is met by a new train of ideas, presenting the 
possible, and magnifying the unquestionable, disadvantages 
and uncertainties of a new situation ; awakening the natural 
reluctance to quit a place to which habit has accommodated 
his feelings, and which has grown warm to him (if I may 
so express it), by his having been in it so long ; giving a 
new impulse to his affection for the friends whom he must 
leave ; and so detaining him still lingering, long after his 
judgment may have dictated to him to be gone. 

A man may think of some desirable alteration in his plan 
of life ; perhaps in the arrangements of his family, or in the 
mode of his intercourse with society — Would it be a good 
thing? He thinks it would be a good thing. It certainly 
would be a very good thing. He wishes it were done. He 
will attempt it almost immediately. The following day, he 
doubts whether it would be quite prudent. Many things 
are to be considered. May there not be in the change some 
evil of which he is not aware? Is this a proper time? 
"What will people say ? And thus, though he does not for- 
mally renounce his purpose, he shrinks out of it, with an 
irksome wish that he could be fully satisfied of the propriety 
of renouncing it. Perhaps he wishes that the thought had 
never occurred to him, since it has diminished his self- 
complacency, without promoting his virtue. But next 
week, his conviction of the wisdom and advantage of such 
a reform comes again with great force. Then — Is it so 
practicable as I was at first willing to imagine ? Why not ? 
Other men have done much greater things ; a resolute mind 
may brave and accomplish every thing ; difficulty is a stim- 
ulus and a triumph to a strong spirit ; " the joys of conquest 



DECISION OF CHARACTER. 9 

are the joys of man," What need I care for people's opi- 
nion ? It shall be done. He makes the first attempt. But 
some unexpected obstacle presents itself; he feels the awk- 
wardness of attempting an unaccustomed manner of acting; 
the questions or the ridicule of his friends disconcert him ; 
his ardor abates and expires. He again begins to question, 
whether it be wise, whether it be necessary, whether it be 
possible ; and at last surrenders his purpose, to be perhaps 
resunied when the same feelings return, and to be in the 
same manner again relinquished. 

While animated by some magnanimous sentiments which 
he has heard or read, or while musing on some great exam- 
ple, a man may conceive the design, and partly sketch the 
plan, of a generous enterprise ; and his imagijiation revels 
in the felicity, to others and himself, that would follow 
from its accomplishment. The splendid representation 
always centres in himself as the hero who is to realize it. 

In a moment of remitted excitement, a faint whisper 
from within may doubtfully ask. Is this more than a 
dream ; or am I really destined to achieve such an enter- 
prise? Destined! — and why are not this conviction of its 
excellence, this conscious duty of performing the noblest 
things that are possible, and this passionate ardor, enough 
to constitute a destiny? He feels indignant that there 
should be a failing part of his nature to defraud the nobler, 
and cast him below the ideal model and the actual exam- 
ples which he is admiring ; and this feeling assists him to 
resolve, that he will undertake this enterprise, that he 
certainly will, though the Alps or the Ocean lie between 
him and the object. Again his ardor slackens ; distrustful 
of himself, he wishes to know how the design would appear 
to other minds; and when he speaks of it to his associates, 
one of them wonders, another laughs, and another frowns. 
His pride, while wdth them, attempts a manful defence ; but 
his resolution gradually crumbles down toward their level ; 
he becomes in a little while ashamed to entertain a vision- 
ary project, which therefore, hke a rejected friend, desists 
from intruding on him, or following him, except at linger- 
ing distance ; and he subsides, at last, into what he labors 
to believe a man too rational for, the schemes of ill- calcu- 
lating enthusiasm. And it were strange if the effort to 
make out this favorable estimate of himself did not succeed, 
while it is so much more pleasant to attribute one's defect 



10 Foster's essay on 

of enterprise to -wisdom, whicji on maturer thought disap- 
proves it, than to inabecility, which shrinks from it. 

A person of undecisive character wonders how all the 
embarrassments in the world happened to meet exactly in 
his way, to place him just in that one situation for which 
he is peculiarly unadapted, but in which he is also willing 
to think no other man could have acted with facility or 
confidence. Incapable of setting up a firm purpose on the 
basis of things as they are, he is often employed in vain 
speculations on some different supposable state of things, 
which would have saved him from all this perplexity and 
irresolution. He thinks what a determined course he could 
have pursued, i/his talents, his health, his age, had been 
different ; if he had been acquainted with some one person 
sooner; if his friends were, in this or the other point, 
different from what they are; or if fortune had showered 
her favors on him. And he gives himself as much license 
to complain, as if all these advantages had been among the 
rights of his nativity, but refused, by a malignant or capri- 
cious fate, to his life. Thus he is occupied — instead of 
marking with a vigilant eye, and seizing with a strong 
hand, all the possibilities of his actual situation. 

A man without decision can never be said to belong to 
himself; since, if he dared to assert that he did, the puny 
force of some cause, about as powerful, you would have 
supposed, as a spider, may make a seizure of the hapless 
boaster the very next moment, and contemptuously exhibit 
the futility of the determinations by which he was to have 
proved the independence of his understanding and his will. 
He belongs to whatever can make capture of him ; and one 
thing after another vindicates its right to him, by arresting 
him while he is trying to go on ; as twigs and chips, float- 
ing near the edge of a river, are intercepted by every weed, 
and whirled in every little eddy. Having concluded on a 
design, he may pledge himself to accomplish it — if the hun- 
dred diversities of feeling which may come within the 
week, will let him. His character precluding all foresight 
of his conduct, he may sit and wonder what form and di- 
rection his views and actions are destined to take to-mor- 
row ; as a farmer lias often to acknowledge that next day's 
proceedings are at the disposal of its winds and clouds. 

This man's notions and determinations always depend 
very much on other human beings ; and what chance for 



DECISION OF CHARACTER. IJ 

consistency and stability, while the persons with whom he 
may converse, or transact, are so various ? This very even- 
ing, he may talk with a man wJiose sentiments will melt 
away the present form and outline of his purposes, however 
firm and defined he may have fancied them to be. A suc- 
cession of persons whose faculties were stronger than his 
own, might, in spite of his irresolute re-action, take him 
and dispose of him as they pleased. Such infirmity of 
spirit practically confesses him made for subjection, and he 
passes, like a slave, from owner to owner. Sometimes in- 
deed it happens, that a person so constituted falls into the 
train, and under the permanent ascendency of some one 
stronger mind, which thus becomes through life the oracle 
and guide, and ^ves the inferior a steady will and plan. 
This, when the governing spirit is wise and virtuous, is a 
fortunate relief to the feeling, and an advantage gained to 
the utility of the subordinate, and as it were, appended 
mind. 

The regulation of every man's plan must greatly depend 
on the course of events, which come in an order not to be 
foreseen or prevented. But in accommodating the plans 
of conduct to the train of events, the difference between 
two men may be no less than that, in the one instance, the 
man is subservient to the events, and in the other, the events 
are made subservient to the man. Some men seem to have 
been taken along by a succession of events, and, as it were, 
handed forward in helpless passiveness from one to an- 
other ; having no determined principle in their own charac- 
ters, by which they could constrain those events to serve 
a design formed antecedently to them, or apparently in 
defiance of them. The events seized them as a neutral 
material, not they the events. Others, advancing through 
life with an internal invincible determination, have seemed 
to make the train of circumstances, whatever they were, 
conduce as much to their chief design as if they had, by 
some directing interposition, been brought about on pur- 
pose. It is wonderful how even the casualties of life seem 
to bow to a spirit that will not bow to them, and yield to 
subserve a design which they may, in- their first apparent 
tendency, threaten to frustrate. 

You may have known such examples, though they are 
comparatively not numerous. You may have seen a man 
of this vigorous character in a state of indecision concern- 



12 • Foster's essay on 

ing some affair in which it was necessary for him to deter- 
mine* bepause it was necessary for him to act. But in this 
case, his manner would assure you that he would not 
remain long undecided ; you would wonder if you found 
him still balancing and hesitating the next day. If he 
explained his thoughts, you would perceive that their clear 
process, evidently at each effort gaining something toward 
the result, must certainly reach it ere long. The delibera- 
tion of such a mind is a very different thing from the fluc- 
tuation of one whose second thinking only upsets the first, 
and whose third confounds both. To Jcnow how to obtain a 
determination, is one of the first requisites and indications 
of a rationally decisive character. 

When the decision was arrived at, and a plan of action 
approved, you would feel an assurance that something 
would absolutely be done. It is characteristic of such a 
mind, to think for effect; and the pleasure of escaping from 
temporary doubt gives an additional impulse to tlie force 
with which it is carried into action. The man will not 
re-examine his conclusions with endless repetition, and he 
will not be delayed long by consulting other persons, after 
he -had ceased to consult himself. He cannot bear to sit 
still among unexecuted decisions and unattempted projects. 
We wait to hear of his achievements, and are confident we 
shall not wait long. The possibility or the means may not 
be obvious to us, but we know that every thing will be 
attempted, and that a spirit of such determined will is like 
a river, which, in whatever manner it is obstructed^ will 
make its way- somewhere. It must have cost Caesar many 
anxious hours of deliberation, before he decided to pass the 
Rubicon ; but it is probable he suffered but few to elapse 
between the decision and the execution. And any one of 
his friends who should have been apprised of his determi- 
nation, and understood his character, would have smiled 
contemptuously to hear it insinuated that though Caesar 
had resolved, Caesar would not dare ; or that though he 
might cross the Rubicon, whose opposite bank presented 
to him no hostile legions, he might come to other rivers, 
which he would not cross; or that either rivers, or any 
other obstacle, would deter him from prosecuting his deter- 
mination from this ominous commencement to its very last 
consequence. 

One signal advantage possessed by a mind of this char- 



DECISION OF CHARACTER. 13 

acter is, that its passions are not wasted. The whole 
measure of passion of which any one, with important trans- 
actions before him, is capable, is not more than enough to 
supply interest and energy for the required practical exer- 
tions ; therefore as little as possible of this costly flame 
should be expended in a way that does not augment the 
force of action. But nothing can less contribute or be 
more destructive to vigor of action, than protracted anx- 
ious fluctuation, through resolutions adopted, rejected, 
resumed, suspended; while yet nothing causes a greater 
expense of feeling. The heart is fretted and exhausted by 
being subjected to an alternation of contrary excitements, 
with the ultimate mortifying consciousness of their contri- 
buting to no end. The long- wavering deliberation, whether 
to perform some bold action of difficult virtue, has often 
cost more to feeling than the action itself, or a series of 
such actions, would have cost ; with the great disad- 
vantage too of not being relieved by any of that invigora- 
tion which the man in action finds in tlie activity itself, 
that spirit created to renovate the energy which the action 
is expending. \Yhen the passions are not consumed among 
dubious musings and abortive resolutions, their utmost 
value and use can be secured by throwing all their ani- 
mating force into effective operation. 

Another advantage of this character is, that it exempts 
from a great deal of interference and obstructive annoy- 
ance, which an irresolute man may be almost sure to 
encounter. Weakness, in every form, tempts arrogance; 
and a man may be allowed to wish for a kind of character 
with which stupidity and impertinence may not make so 
free. . "When a firm, decisive spirit is recognized, it is curi- 
ous to see how the space clears around a man, and leaves 
him room and freedom. The disposition to interrogatdj 
dictate, or banter, preserves a respectful and politic dis- 
tance, judging it not unwise to keep the peace with a 
person of so much energy. A conviction that he under- 
stands, and that he wills with extraordinary force^ silences 
the conceit that intended to perplex or instruct him, and 
intimidates the malice that was disposed to attack him. 
There is a feeling, as in respect to Fate, that the decrees of 
so inflexible a spirit must be right, or that, at least, they 
will be accomplished. 

But not only will he secure the freedom of acting for 
2 



14 Foster's essay on 

himself, he will obtain also by degrees the coincidence of 
those in whose company he is to transact the business of 
life. If the manners of such a man be free from arrogance, 
•and he can qualify his firmness with a moderate degree of 
insinuation; and if his measures have partly lost the 
appearance of being the dictates of his will, under the 
wider and softer sanction of some experience that they are 
reasonable; both competition and fear will be laid to 
sleep, and his will may acquire an unresisted ascendency 
over many who will be pleased to fall into the mechanism 
of a system, which they find makes them more successful 
and happy than they could have been amidst the anxiety 
of adjusting plans and expedients of their own, and the 
consequences of often adjusting them ill. T have known 
several parents, both fathers and mothers, whose manage- 
ment of their families has answered this description ; and 
has displayed a striking example of the facile complacency 
with which a number of persons, of different ages and dis- 
positions, will yield to the decisions of a firm mind, acting 
on an equitable and enlightened system. 

The last resource of this character is hard, inflexible per- 
tinacity, on which it may be allowed to rest its strength 
after finding it can be effectual in none of its milder forms. 
I remember admiring an instance of this kind, in a firm, 
sagacious, and estimable old man, whom I well knew, and 
who has long been dead. Being on a jury, in a trial of life 
and death, he was satisfied of the innocence of the prisoner ; 
the other eleven were of the opposite opinion. But he 
was resolved the man should not be condemned ; and as 
the first effort for preventing it, very properly made appli- 
cation to the minds of his associates, spending severaljiours 
in laboring to convince them. But he found he made no 
impression, while he was exhausting the strength which it 
was necessary to reserve for another mode of operation. 
He then calmly told them that it should now be a trial 
who could endure confinement and fiimine the longest, and 
that they might be quite assured he would sooner die than 
release them, at the expense of the prisoner's life. In this 
situation they spent about twenty-four hours; when at 
length all acceded to his verdict of acquittal. 

It is not necessary to amplify on the indispensable ipi- 
portance of this quality, in order to the accomplishment of 
any thing eminently good. We instantly see, that every 



DECISION OF CHARACTER. 15 

path to signal excellence is so obstructed and beset, that 
none but a spirj^t so qualified can pass. But it is time to 
examine what are the elements of that mental constitution 
which is displayed in the character in question. 



LETTER II. 

Perhaps the best mode would be, to bring into our 
thoughts, in succession, the most remarkable examples of 
this character that we have known in real life, or that we 
have read of in history, or even in fiction; and attentively 
to observe, in their conversations, manners, and actions, 
what principles appear to produce, or to constitute, this 
commanding distinction. You will easily pursue this in- 
vestigation yourself. I lately made a partial attempt, an.d 
shall oflfer you a number of suggestions. 

As a previous observation, it is beyond all doubt that 
very much depends on the constitution of the body. It 
would be for physiologists to explain, if it were explicable, 
the manner in which corporeal organization atfects the 
mind ; I only assume it as a fact, that there is in the mate- 
rial construction of some persons, much more than of others, 
some quality which augments, if it do not create, both the 
stability of their resolution, and the energy of their active 
tendencies. There is something that, like the ligatures 
which one class of the Olympic combatants bound on their 
hands and wrists, braces round, if I may so describe it, and 
compresses the powers of the mind, giving them a steady 
forcible spring and reaction, which they would presently 
lose if they could be transferred into a constitution of soft, 
yielding, treacherous debility. The action of strong cha- 
racter seems to demand something firm in its material 
basis, as massive engines require, for their weight and for 
their working, to be fixed on a solid foundation. Accord- 
ingly, I believe it would be found, that a majority of the 
persons most remarkable for decisive character, have pos- 
sessed great constitutional physical firmness. I do not 
mean an exemption from disease and pain, nor any certain 
measure of mechanical strength, but a tone of vigor the 



16 Foster's essay on 

opposite to lassitude, and adapted to great exertion and 
endurance. This is clearly evinced in respect to many of 
them, by the prodipous labors and deprivations which they 
have borne in prosecuting their designs. The physical 
nature has seemed a proud ally of the moral one, and with 
a hardness that would never shrink, has sustained the 
energy that could never remit. 

A view of the disparities between the different races of 
animals inferior to man, will show the effect of organiza- 
tion on disposition. Compare, for instance, a lion with 
the common beasts of our fields, many of them larger in 
bulk of animated substance. What a vast superiority of 
courage, and impetuous and determined action; which 
difference we attribute to some great dissimilarity of modi- 
fication in the composition of the animated material. Now 
it is probable that a difference somewhat analogous sub- 
sists between some human beings and others in point of 
wliat we may call mere physical constitution; and that 
this is no small part of the cause of the striking inequalities 
in respect to decisive character. A man who excels in the 
power of decision has probably more of the physical quality 
of a lion in his composition than other men. 

It is observable that women in general have less inflexi- 
bility of character than men ; and though many moral 
influences contribute to this difference, the principal cause 
may probably be something less firm in the corporeal con- 
stitution, Now that physical quality, whatever it is, from 
the smaller measure of which in the constitution of the 
frame, women have less firmness than men, may be pos- 
sessed by one man more than by men in general in a 
greater degree of difference than that by which men in 
general exceed women. 

If there have been found some resolute spirits powerfully 
asserting themselves in feeble vehicles, it is so much the 
better; since this would authorize a hope, that if all the 
other grand requisites can be combined, they may form a 
strong character, in spite of an unadapted constitution. 
And on the other hand, no constitutional hardness will 
form a true character, without tliose superior pi'operties ; 
though it may produce that false and contemptible kind of 
decision which we term obstinacy ; a stubbornness of tem- 
per, which can assign no reasons but mere will, for a con- 
stancy which acts in the nature of dead weight rather than 



DECISION OT CHARACTER. l7 

of strength ; resembling less the reaction of a powerful 
spring than the gravitation of a big stone. 

The first prominent mental characteristic of the person 
•whom I describe is, a complete confidence in his own 
judgment. It will perhaps be said, that this is not so 
uncommon a qualification. I however think it is uncom- 
mon. It is indeed obvious enough, that almqgt all men 
have a flattering estimate of their own understanding, 
and that as long as this understanding has no harder 
task than to form opinions which are not to be tried 
in action, they have a most self-complacent assurance 
of being right. This assurance extends to the judgments 
which they pass on the proceedings of others. But let 
them be brought into the necessity of adopting actual mea- 
sures in an untried situation, where, unassisted by any 
previous example or practice, they are reduced to depend 
on the bare resources of judgment alone, and you will see, 
in many cases, this confidence of opinion vanish away. 
The mind seems all at once placed in a misty vacuity, 
where it reaches round on all sides, but can find nothing to 
take hold of. Or if not lost in vacuity, it is overwhelmed 
in confusion ; and feels as if its faculties were annihilated 
in the attempt to think of schemes and calculations among 
the possibilities, chances, and hazards which overspread a 
wide untrodden field ; and this conscious imbecility be- 
comes severe distress, when it is believed that conse- 
quences, of serious or unknown good or evil, are depending 
on the decisions which are to be formed amidst so much 
uncertainty. The thought painfully recurs at each step 
and turn, I may by chance be right, but it is fully as pro- 
bable I am wrong. It is like the case of a rustic walking 
in London, who, having no certain direction through tlie 
vast confusion of streets to the place where he wishes to 
be, advances, and hesitates, and turns, and inquires, and 
becomes, at each corner, still more inextricably perplexed.* 
A man in tliis situation feels he shall be unfortunate if he 
cannot accomplish more than he can understand. Is not 
this frequently, when brought to the practical test, the 

* "Why does not the man call a hackney-coach?" a gay reader, I am 
aware, will say of the person so bemazed in the great town. So he might, 
certainly (that is, if he knew where to find one) ; and the gay reader and I 
have only to deplore that there is no parallel convenience for the assistance 
of perplexed understandings. 



18 Foster's essay on 

state of a mind not disposed in general to underralne its 
own judgment ? 

In c:v<es where judgment is not so completely bewildered, 
von will yet perceive a great practical distrust of it, A 
man has perha|^ advanced a considerable way towards a 
decision, but then lingers at a small distance from it, till 
necessity, with a stronger hand than conviction, impels him 
upon it. He cannot see the whole length of the question, 
and suspects the part Wyond his sight to be the nn^st 
important^ for the most essential point and stress of it may 
be there. He fears that certain i^ossible con;sequences, if 
they should follow, would cause him to reproach himself 
for his present determination. He wonders how this or 
the other person would have acted in the same circum- 
stances; eiigerly catches at any thing like a respectable 
precedent ; would be perfectly willing to forego the pride 
of setting an example, for the safety of following one ; and 
looks anxiously round to know what each person may 
think on the subject ; while the various .and opposite 
opinions to which he listens, perh,aps only serve to confound 
his perception of the track of thought by which he had 
hc»ped to reach his conclusion. Even when that conclusion 
is obtained, there are not many minds that might not 
be brought a few degrees back into dubious hesitation, by 
a man of re^^pected understanding saying, in a confident 
tone, Your plan is injudicious ; your selection is unfortu- 
nate; the event will disappoint yon. 

It cannot be supposed that I am maintaining such an 
absurdity as that a man's complete reliance on his own 
judgment is a proof of its strength and rectitude. Iritense 
stupidity may be in this point the rival of clear-sighted 
■wisdom. I had once some knowledge of a person whom 
no mortal could have surpassed, not Cromwell or Strafford, 
in confidence in his own judgment and consequent inflexi- 
bility of conduct; while at the same time his successive 
schemes were ill-judged to a degree that made his disap- 
pointments ridiculous still more than pitiable. He was 
not f>n example of that simph obstinacy which 1 have 
mentioned before ; for he considered his measures, and did 
not want for reasons which seriously satisfied himself of 
their being most judicious. This confidence of opinion 
may be possessed by a person in whom it will be contemp- 
tible or mischievous ; but its proper place is in a very 



DECISION OF CHARACTER. 19 

different character, and without it there can be no dignified 
actors in human affairs. 

If, after it is seen how foolish this confidence appears as 
a feature in a weak character, it i)e inquired what, in a 
rightfully decisive person's manner of thinking, it is that 
authorizes him in this firm assurance that his view of the 
concerns befi^re him is comprehensive and accurate ; he 
may, in answer, justify his confidence on such grounds as 
these: that he is conscious that objects are presented to his 
mind with an exceedingly distinct and perspicuous aspect, 
not like the shapes of moonlight, or like Ossian's ghosts, 
dim forms of uncircumscribed shade; that he sees the 
different parts of the subject in an arranged order, not in 
unconnected fragments ; that in each deliberation the main 
object keeps its clear pre-eminence, and he perceives the 
bearings which the subordinate and conducive ones have 
on it ; that perhaps several trains of thought, drawn from 
different points, lead him to the same conclusion ; and that 
he finds his judgment does not vary in servility to the 
moods of his feelings. 

It may be presumed that a high degree of this d^iaracter 
is not attained without a considerable laeasure of that kind 
of certainty, with respect to the relations of things, which 
can be acquired only from experience and observation. A 
very protracted course of time, however, may not be 
indispensable for this discipline. An extreme vigilance in 
the exercise of observation, and a strong and strongly ex- 
erted power of generalizing on experience, may have made 
a comparatively short time enougli to supply a large share 
of the wisdom derivable from these sources ; so that a man 
may, long before he is old, be rich in the benefits of expe- 
rience, and therefore may have all the decision of judgment 
legitimately founded on that accomplishment. This know- 
ledge from experience he will be able to apply in a direct 
and immediate manner, and without refining it into gene- 
ral principles, to some situations of afiairs, so as to antici- 
pate the consequences of certain actions in those situations 
by as plain a reason, and as confidently, as the kind of fruit 
to be produced by a given kind of tree. Thus far the facts 
of his experience will serve him as precedents ; cases of 
such near resemblance to those in which he is now to act 
as to afford him a rule by the most immediate inference. 
At the next step, he will be able to apply this knowledge. 



20 Foster's essay on 

now converted into general principles, to a multitude of 
cases bearing but a partial resemblance to anything he has 
actually witnessed. And then, in looking forward to the 
possible occurrence of altogether new combinations of 
circumstances, he can trust to the resources which he is 
persuaded his intellect will open to him, or is humbly con- 
fident, if he be a devout man, that the Supreme Intelligence 
will not suffer to be wanting to him when the occasion 
arrives. In proportion as his views include, at all events, 
more certainties than those of other men, he is with good 
reason less fearful of contingencies. And if, in the course 
of executing his design, unexpected disastrous events 
should befall, but which are not owing to anything wrong 
in the plan and principles of that design, but to foreign 
causes ; it will be characteristic of a strong mind to attribute 
these events discriminatively to their own causes, and not 
to the plan which, therefore, instead of being disliked and 
relinquished, will be still as much approved as before, and 
the man will proceed calmly to the sequel of it without any 
change of arrangement ; unless, indeed, these sinister 
events should be of such consequence as to alter the whole 
state of things to which the plan was correctly adapted, 
and so create a necessity to form an entirely new one, 
adapted to that altered state. 

Though he do not absolutely despise the understandings 
of other men, he will perceive their dimensions as compared 
with his own, which will preserve its independence through 
every communication and encounter. It is, however, a 
part of this very independence, that he will hold himself 
free to alter his opinion, if the information which may be 
communicated to him shall bring sufficient reason. And 
as no one is so sensible of the importance of a complete 
acquaintance with a subject as the man who is always 
endeavoring to think conclusively, he will listen with the 
utmost attention to the information, which may sometimes 
be received from persons for whose judgment he has no 
great respect. The information which they may afford 
him is not at all the less valuable for the circumstance, that 
his practical inferences from it may be quite different from 
theirs. If they will only give him an accurate account of 
facts, he does not care how indifferently they may reason 
on them. Counsel will in general have only so much 
weight with him as it supplies knowledge which may assist 



DECISION OF CHARACTER. 21 

his judgment; he will yield nothing to it implicitly as 
authority, except when it comes from p.ersons of approved 
and eminent wisdom ; but he may hear it with more can- 
dor and good temper, from being conscious of this inde- 
pendence of his judgment, than the man who is afraid lest 
the first person that begins to persuade him, should baffle 
his determination. He feels it entirely a work of his own 
to deliberate and to resolve, amidst all the advice which 
may be attempting to control him. If, with an assurance 
of his intellect being of the highest order, he also holds a 
commanding station, he will feel it gratuitous to consult 
with any one, excepting merely to receive statements of 
facts. This appears to be exemplified in the man, who has 
lately shown the nations of Europe how large a portion of 
the world may, when Heaven permits, be at the mercy of 
the solitary workings of an individual mind. 

The strongest trial of this determination of judgment is 
in those cases of urgency where something must immedi- 
ately be done, and the alternative of right or wrong is of 
important consequence ; as in the duty of a medical man, 
treating a patient whose situation at once requires a daring 
practice, and puts it in painful doubt what to dare. A still 
stronger illustration is the case of a general who is com- 
pelled, in the very instant, to make dispositions on which 
the event of a battle, the lives of thousands of his men, or 
perhaps almost the fate of a nation, may depend. He may 
even be placed in a dilemma "vniich appears equally dread- 
ful on both sides. Such a predicament is described in 
Denon's account of one of the sanguinary conflicts between 
the French and Mamelukes, as having for a while held in 
the most distressing hesitation General Desaix, though a 
prompt and intrepid commander. 



LETTER III. 

This indispensable basis, confidence of opinion, is how- 
ever not enough to constitute the character in question. 
For many persons who have been conscious and proud of 
a much stronger grasp of thought than ordinary men, and 



22 Foster's essay on 

have held the most decided opinions on important things 
to be done, have yet exhibited, in the listlessness or incon- 
stancy of their actions, a contrast and a disgrace to the 
operations of their understandings. For want of some 
cogent feeling impelling them to carry every internal deci- 
sion into action, they have been still left where they were ; 
and a dignified judgment has been seen in the hapless 
plight of having no effective forces to execute its decrees. 

It is evident, then (and I perceive I have partly antici- 
pated this article in the first letter), that another essential 
principle of the character is, a total incapability of surren- 
dering to indifference or delay the serious determinations 
of the mind. A strenuous will must accompany the con- 
clusions of thought, and constantly incite the utmost 
efforts to give them a practical result. The intellect must 
be invested, if I may so describe it, with a glowing atmos- 
phere of passion, under the influence of which, the cold 
dictates of reason take fire, and spring into active powers. 

Revert once more in your thoughts to the persons most 
remarkably distinguished by this quality. You will per- 
ceive, that instead of allowing themselves to sit down 
delighted after the labor of successful tliinking, as if they 
had completed some great thing, they regard this labor but 
as a circumstance of preparation, and the conclusions 
resulting from it as of no more value (till going into effect) 
than the entombed lamps of the Rosicrucians. They are 
not disposed to be content in a region of mere ideas^, while 
they ought to be advancing into the field of corresponding 
realities ; they retire to that region sometimes, as ambitious 
adventurers anciently went to Delphi, to consult, but not 
to reside. You will therefore find them almost uniformly 
in determined pursuit of some object, on which they fix a 
keen and steady look, never losing sight of it while they 
follow it through the confused multitude of other things. 

A person actuated by such a spirit, seems by his manner 
to say. Do you think tliat I would not disdain to adopt a 
purpose which 1 would not devote my utmost force to 
effect; or that having thus devoted my exertions, I will 
intermit or withdraw them, through indolence, debility, or 
caprice; or that I will surrender my object to any inter- 
ference, except the uncontrollable dispensations of Provi- 
dence ? No, I am linked to ray determination with iron 
bands ; it clings to me as if a part of my destiny; and if 



DECISION OF CHARACTER. 23 

its frustration be, on the contrary, doomed a part of that 
destiny, it is doomed so only through calamity or death. 

This display of systematic energy seems to Indicate a 
constitution of mind in which the passions are commensu- 
rate with the intellectual part, and at the same time hold 
an inseparable correspondence with it, like the faithful 
sympathy of the tides with the phases of the moon. There 
is such an equality and connection. The subjects of the 
decisions of judgment become proportionally and of course 
the objects of passion. When the judgment decides with 
a very strong preference, that same strength of preference, 
actuating also the passions, devotes them with energy to 
the object, as long as it is thus approved; and this will 
produce such a conduct as I have described. When, there- 
fore, a firm, self-confiding, and unaltering judgment fails to 
make a decisive character, it is evident either that the pas- 
sions in that mind are too languid to be capable of a strong 
and unremitting excitement, which defect makes an indo- 
lent or irresolute man ; or that they perversely sometimes 
coincide with judgment and sometimes clash with it, which 
makes an inconsistent or versatile man. 

There is no man so irresolute as not to act with determi- 
nation in many single cases, where the motive is powerful 
and simple, and where there is no need of plan and per- 
severance ; but this gives no claim to the term character^ 
which expresses the habitual tenor of a man's active 
being. The character may be displayed in the successive 
unconnected undertakings, which are each of limited extent, 
and end with the attainment of their particular objects. 
But it is seen in its most commanding aspect in those grand 
schemes of action, which have no necessary point of con- 
clusion, which continue on through successive years, and 
extend even to that dark period when the agent himself is 
withdrawn from human sight. 

I have repeatedly, in conversation, remarked to you tlie 
effect of what has been called a Ruling Passion. When its 
ohject is noble, and an enlightened understanding regulates 
its movements, it appears to me a great felicity ; but whe- 
ther its object be noble or not, it infallibly creates, where 
it exists in great force, that active ardent constancy, which 
I describe as a capital feature of the decisive , character. 
The Subject of such a commanding passion wonders, if 
indeed he were at leisure to wonder, at the persons who 



24 Foster's essay on 

pretend to attach importance to an object which they make 
none but the most languid efforts to secure. The utmost 
powers of the man are constrained into the service of the 
favorite Cause by this passion, which sweeps away, as it 
advances, all the trivial objections and little opposing mo- 
tives, and seems almost to open a way through impossibi- 
lities. This spirit comes on him in the morning as soon as 
he recovers his consciousness, and commands and impels 
him through the day, with a power from which he could 
not emancipate himself if he would. When the force of 
habit is added, the determination becomes invincible, and 
seems to assume rank with the great laws of nature, mak- 
ing it nearly as certain that such a man will persist in his 
course as that in the morning the sun will rise. 

A persisting untamable eflBcacy of soul gives a sedac- 
tive and pernicious dignity even to a character which every 
moral principle forbids us to approve. Often in the nar- 
rations of history and fiction, an agent of the most dreadful 
designs compels a sentunent of deep respect for the uncon- 
querable mind displayed in their execution. While we 
shudder at his activity, we say with regret, mingled with 
an admiration which borders on partiality. What a noble 
being this would have been, if goodness had been his des- 
tiny ! The partiality is evinced in the very selection of 
terms, by which we show that we are tempted to refer his 
atrocity rather to his destiny than to his choice. I wonder 
whether an emotion like this has not been experienced by 
each reader of Paradise Lost, relative to the Leader of the 
infernal spirits; a proof, if such were the fact, of some 
insinuation of evil into the magnificent creation of the 
poet. In some of the high examples of ambition (the am- 
bition which is a vice), we almost revere the force of mind 
which impelled them forward through the longest series 
of action, superior to doubt and fluctuation, and disdainful 
of ease, of pleasures, of opposition, and of danger. We 
bend in homage before the ambitious spirit which reached 
the true sublime in the reply of Pompey to his friends, who 
dissuaded him from hazarding his life on a tempestuous 
sea in order to be at Rome on an important occasion: "It 
is necessary for me to go, it is not necessary for me to 
live." 

Revenge has produced wonderful examples of this unre- 
mitting constancy to a purpose. Zanga is a well-supported 



DECISION OF CHARACTER. 25 

illustration. And you may have read of a real instance of 
a Spaniard, who, being injured by another inhabitant of 
the same town, resolved to destroy liiin; the otlier was 
apprised of this, and removed with the utmost secrecy, a 
he thought, to another town at a considerable distance 
where, however, he had not been more than a day or two 
before he found that his enemy also was there. He re 
moved in the same manner to several parts of the kingdom 
remote from each otlier; but in every place quickly per- 
ceived that his deadly pursuer was near him. At last he 
went to Sontli America, where lie had enjoyed his security 
but a very short time, before his relentless pursuer came 
up with him, and accomplished his purpose. 

You may recollect tlie mention in one of our conversa- 
tions, of a young man who wasted in two or three years a 
large patrimony, in profligate revels with a number of 
worthless associates calling themselves his friends, till his 
last means were exhausted, when they of course treated 
him with neglect or contempt. Reduced to absolute want, 
he one day went out of the house with an intention to put 
an end to his life; but wandering awhile almost uncon- 
sciously, he came to the brow of an eminence which over- 
looked what were lately his estates. Here he sat down 
and remained fixed in thought a number of hours, at the 
end of which he sprang from the ground with a vehement 
exulting emotion. He had formed his resolution, which 
was that all these estates should be his again ; he had 
formed his plan too, which he instantly began to execute. 
He walked hastily forward, determined to seize the very 
first opportunity, of however humble a kind, to gain any 
money, though it were ever so despicable a trifle, and re- 
solved absolutely not to spend, if he could help it, a farthing 
of whatever he might obtain. The first thing that drew his 
attention was a heap of coals, shot out of carts on the pave- 
ment before a house. He offered himself to shovel or wheel 
them into the place where they were to be laid, and was 
employed. He received a few pence for the labor; and 
then, in pursuance of the saying part of his plan, requested 
some small gratuity of meat and drink, which was given 
him. He then looked out for the next thing that might 
chance to offer; and went, with indefatigable industry, 
through a succession of servile employments, in different 
places, of longer and shorter duration, still scrupulously 
3 



26 Foster's essay on 

avoiding, as far as possible, the expense of a penny. He 
promptly seized ete.ry opportunity which could advance his 
design, without regarding tlie meanness of occupation or 
appearance. By this metliod he had gained, after a consi- 
derable time, money enough to ])urchase, in order to sell 
again, a few cattle, of which he had taken pains to under- 
stand the value. He speedily but cautiously turned his 
first gains into second advantages; retained Avithout a 
single deviation liis extreme parsimony ; and thus advanced 
by degrees into lai'ger transactions and incipient wealth. 
I did not hear, or have forgotten, the continued course of 
hiS life; but the final result was, tliat he more than recov- 
ered his lost possessions, and died an inveterate miser, 
worth 60,000^. I have always recollected this as a signal 
instance, though in an unfortunate and ignoble direction, 
of decisive character, and of the extraordinary effect which, 
according to general laws, belongs to the strongest form of 
such a character. 

But nor less decision has been displayed by men of virtue. 
In this distinction no man ever exceeded, or ever will ex- 
ceed, for instance, the late illustrious Howard. 

The energy of his determination was so great, that if, 
instead of being habitual, it liad been shown only for a 
short time on i)articular occasions, it would have appeared 
a vehement impetuosity; but by being unintermitted, it 
had an equability of manner which scarcely appeared to 
exceed the tone of a calm constancy, it was so totally the 
reverse of anything like turbulence or agitation. It was 
the calmness of an intensity kept uniform by the nature of 
the human mind forbidding it to be more, and by the cha- 
racter of the individual forbidding it to be less. The 
habitual passion of his mind was a pitch of excitement and 
impulsion almost equal to the temporary extremes and 
paroxysms of common minds; as a great river, in its cus- 
tomary state, is equal to a small or moderate one when 
swollen to a torrent. 

The moment of finishing his plans in deliberation, and 
commencing them in action, was the same. I wonder what 
must have been the amount of that bribe, in emolument or 
pleasure, that would have detained him a week inactive 
after their final adjustment. The law which carries water 
down a declivity was not more unconquerable and invari- 
able than the determination of his feelings toward the main 



DECISION OF CHARACTER. "^ 

object: The importance of this object held his faculties in 
a state of determination which was too rigid to be affected 
by lighter interests, and on which therefore the beauties of 
nature and of art had no power. He had no leisure 
feeliug which he could spare to be diverted among the 
innumerable varieties of the extensive scene which he tra- 
versed; his subordinate feelings nearly lost their separate 
existence and operation, by falling into the grand one. 
There have not been wanting trivial minds to mark this as 
a fault in his character. But the mere men of taste ought 
to be silent respecting such a man as Howard; he is above 
their sphere of judgment. The invisible spirits, who fulfill 
their commission of philanthropy among mortals, do nt)t 
care about pictures, statues, and sumptuous buildings ; and 
no more did he, when t])e time in which he must have 
inspected and admired them, would have been taken from 
the work to which he had consecrated his life. The curi- 
osity which he might feel, was reduced to wait till the hour 
should arrive, when its gratification should be presented 
by conscience (which kept a scrupulous charge of all his 
time), as the duty of that hour. If he v/as still at every 
hour, when it came, fated to feel the attractions of the fine 
arts but the second claim, they might be sure of their 
revenge; for no other man will ever visit Rome under such 
a despotic acknowledged rule of duty, as to refuse himself 
time for surveying the magnificence of its ruins. Such a 
sin against faste is very far beyond the reach of common 
saintship to commit. It implied an inconceivable severity 
of conviction, that he had one thing to do^ and that he who 
would do some great thing in this short life, must apply 
himself to the work with such a concentration of his forces, 
as, to idle sp ctators, who live only to amuse themselves, 
looks like insanity. 

His attention was so strongly and tenaciously fixed on 
his object, that even at the greatest distance, as the Egyp- 
tian pyramids to travellers, it appeared to him witii a 
lumintuis distinctness as if it had been nigh, and beguiled 
the toilsome length of labor and enterprise by which he 
was to reach it. So conspicuous was it before him, that 
not a step deviated from the direction, and every move- 
ment and every day was an approximation. As his me- 
thod referred everything he did and thought to the end, and 
as his exertion did not relax for a moment, he made the 



28 Foster's essay on 

trial, so seldom made, what is the utmost effect which may 
be granted to the last possible efforts of a huinan ageDt: 
and therefore what he did not accomplish, he might 
conchide to be placed beyond the sphere of mortal acti- 
vity, and calmly lead to the immediate disposal of Provi- 
dence. 

Unless the eternal happiness of mankind be an insignifi- 
cant concern, and the passion to promote it an inglorious 
distinction, I may cite George Whitetield as a noble 
instance of this attribute of tiie decisive character, this 
intense necessity of action. The great cause which was 
so languid a thing in the hands of many of its advocates, 
assumed in his administrations an unmitigable urgency. 

Many of the Christian missionaries among the heatliens, 
such as Brainerd, Elliot, and Schwartz, have displayed 
memorable examples of this dedication of their whole 
being to their office, this abjuration of all the quiescent 
feelings. 

This would be the proper place for introducing (if I did 
not iiesitate to introduce in any connection with merely 
human instances) the example of him who said, " I must 
be about my Father's business. My meat and drink is to 
do the will of him that sent me, and to finish his work. I 
have a baptism to be baptized with, and how am I straight- 
ened till it be accomplished." 



LETTER lY. 

After the illustrations on the last article, it will seem 
but a very slight transition wiien 1 proceed to specify 
Courage as an ess»^ntial part of the decisive character. An 
intelligent man, adventurous only in thought, may sketch 
the most excellent scheme, and after duly admiring it, and 
himself as its author, may be reduced to say, What a noble 
spirit that would be which should dare to realize this ! A 
noble spirit! is it I? And his heart may answer in the 
negative, while he glances a mortified thought of inquiry 
round to recollect persons who would venture what he 
dares not, and almost hopes not to find them. Or if by 



DECISION or CHARACTER, 29 

extreme effort he has brought himself to a resohition of 
braving the difficulty, he is compelled to execrate the timid 
liiigerings that still keep him back from the trial. A man 
endowed with the complete character, might say, with a 
sober consciousness, as remote from the spirit of bravado 
as it is from timidity, Thus, and thus, is my conviction 
and my determination; now for the phantoms of fear; let 
me look them in the face ; their menacing glare and omi- 
nous tones vN'ill be lost on me ; " I dare do all that may 
become a man." I trust I shall firmly confront everything 
that threatens me while prosecuting my purpose, and I am 
prepared to meet the consequences of it when it is accom- 
plished. I should despise a being, though it were myself, 
whose agency could be held enslaved by the gloomy shapes 
of imagination, by the haunting recollections of a dream, 
by the whistling or the howling of winds, by the shriek of 
owls, by the shades of midnight, or by the threats or 
frowns of man. I should be indignant to feel that, in the 
commencement of an adventure, I coukl think of nothing 
but the deep pit by the side of the way where I must walk, 
into wliich I may slide, tlie mad animal which it is not 
impossible that I may meet, or the assassin who may lurk 
in a thicket of yonder wood. And I disdain to compro- 
mise the interests that rouse me to action, for the privilege 
of an ignoble security. 

As the conduct of a man of decision is always individual, 
and often singular, he may expect some serious trials of cou- 
rage. For one thing, he may be encountered by the strongest 
disapprobation of many of his connexions, and the censure 
of the greater part of the society where he is known. In 
this case, it is not a man of common spirit that can show 
himself just as at other times, and meet their anger in the 
same undisturbed manner as he would meet some ordinary 
inclemency of the weather; that can, without harshness or 
violence, continue to effect every moment some part of his 
design, coolly replying to each ungracious look and indig- 
nant voice, Tain sorry to oppose you : I am not unfriendly to 
you, while thus persisting in wliut excites your displeasure; 
it would ])lease me to have your approbation and con- 
currence, and I think I should have them if you would 
seriously consider my reasons; but meanwl ile, I am 
superior to opinion, I am not to be intimidated by re- 
proaches, nor would your favor and applause be any reward 



30 

for the sacrifice of my object. As you can do without my 
approbation, I can certainly do without yours; it is 
enough that I can approve myself, it is enough that I 
appeal to the last authority in the creation. Amuse your- 
selves as you may, by continuing to censure or to rail; / 
must continue to act. 

The attack of contempt and ridicule is perhaps a still 
greater trial of courage. It is felt by all to be an admira- 
ble thing, when it can in no degree be ascribed to the 
hardness of either stupidity or confirmed depravity, to 
sustain for a considerable time, or in numerous instances, 
the looks of scorn, or an unrestrained shower of taunts and 
jeers, with perfect composure, and proceed immediately 
after, or at the time, on business that provokes all this 
ridicule. This invincibility of temper will often make 
even scoffers themselves tired of the sport: they begin to 
feel that against such a man it is a poor sort of hostility to 
joke and sneer; and there is nothing that people nre more 
mortified to spend in vain than their scorn. Till, how- 
ever, a man shall become a veteran, he must reckon on 
sometimes meeting this trial in the course of virtuous 
enterprise. And if, at the suggestion of some meritorious 
but unprecedented proceeding, 1 hear him ask, with a look 
and tone of shrinking alarm, But will they not laugh at 
me? — I know that he is not the person whom this essay 
attempts to describe. A man of the right kind would say, 
They will smile, they will laugh, will tiiey? Much good 
may it do them. I have something else to do than to 
trouble myself about their mirth. I do not care if the 
whole neighborhood were to laugh in a chorus. I should 
indeed be sorry to see or hear such a number of fools, but 
pleased enough to find that they considered me as an outlaw 
to their tribe. The good to result from my project will 
not be less, because vain and shallow minds that cannot 
understand it, are diverted at it and at me. What should 
I think of my pursuits, if every trivial, thoughtless being 
could comprehend or would applaud them ; and of myself, 
if my courage needed levity and ignorance for tiieir allies, 
or could be abashed at their sneers ? 

I remember, tliat on reading the account of the projpct 
for conquering Peru, formed by Ahnagro, Pizarro, and l)e 
Luques, while abhorring the actuating principle of the men, 
I could not help admiring the hardihood of mind which 



DECISION OF CHARACTER. 31 

made them regardless of scorn. These three individuals, 
before they had obtained any associates, or arms, or sol- 
diers, or more than a very imperfect knowledge of the 
power of the kingdom tliey were to conquer, celebrated a 
solemn mass in one of the great churches, as a pledge and 
a commencement of the enterprise, amidst the astonish- 
ment and contempt expressed by a multitude of people for 
what was deemed a monstrous project. They, however, 
proceeded through the service, and afterwards to their 
respective departments of preparation, with an .opparently 
entire insensibility to all tliis triumphant contempt; and 
thus gave the first proof of possessing- that invincible firm- 
ness with which they afterwards prosecuted their design, 
till they a*^tained a success, the destructive ))rocess and 
many of the results of which humanity has ever de- 
plored. 

Milton's Abdiel is a noble illustration of the courage that 
rises invincible above the derision not only of the multi- 
tade, but of the proud and elevated. 

But there may be situations where decision of character 
will be brouglit to trial against evils of a darker aspect 
than disapprobation or contempt. There may be the 
threatening of serious sufferings ; and very often, to dare 
as far as conscience or a great cause required, has been to 
dare to die. In almost all plans of great enterprise, a man 
must systematically dismiss, at the entrance, every wish 
to stipulate with his destiny for safety. He voluntarily 
treads within the precincts of danger; and thougli it be 
possible he may escape, he ought to be prepared with tho 
fortitude of a self- devoted victim. This is the inevitable 
condition on which heroes, travellers or missionaries 
among savage nations, and reformers on a grand scale, 
must commence their career. Either they must allay their 
fire of enterprise, or abide the hability to be exploded by 
it from the world. ^ . 

The last decisive energy of a rational courage, which 
confides in the Supreme Power, is very sublime. It makes 
a man who intrepidly dares everything that can oppose or 
attack him witiiin the whole si)here of mortality ; who will 
still press toward his object while death is impending over 
him ; who would retain his purpose unshaken amidst the 
ruins of the world. 

It was in the true elevation of this character that Luther, 



32 FOSTERS ESSAY ON 

when cited to appear at the Diet of Worms, under a very 
questionable assurance of safety from high authority, said 
to his friends, who conjured him not to go, and warned him 
by the example of John Huss, whom, in a similar situa- 
tion, the same pledge of protection had not saved from the 
fire, '^ I am called in the name of God to go. and I would 
go, though I were certain to meet as many devils in Worms 
as there are tiles on the houses." 

A reader of the Bible will not forget Daniel, braving in 
calm devotion the decree which virtually consigned him 
to the den of lions; or Shadrach, Meshacli, and Abed- 
nego, saying to the tyrant, " We are not careful to answer 
thee in this matter," when the "burning fiery" furnace 
was in sight. 

The combination of these several essential principles 
constitutes that state of mind which is a grand requisite 
to decision of character, and perhaps its most striking dis- 
tinction — the full agreement of mind with itself, the 
consenting co-operation of all its powers and all its dis- 
positions. 

What an unfortunate task it would be for a charioteer, 
who had harnessed a set of horses, however strong, if he 
could not make them draw together; if while one of the.n 
would go forward, another was restitf, another struggled 
backward, another started aside. If even one of the four 
were unmanageably perverse, while tlie three were tracta- 
ble, an aged beggar with his crutch might leave Phaeton 
behind. So in a human being, unless the chief forces act 
consentaneously, there can be no inflexible vigor, either of 
will or execution. One dissentient principle in the mind 
not only deducts so much from the strength and mass of 
its agency, but counteracts and embarrasses all the rest. 
If the judgment holds in low estimation tluxt which yet the 
passions incline to pursue, the pursuit will be irregular and 
inconstant, though it may have occasional fits of aniination, 
when those passions happen to be highly stimulated. If 
there is an opposition between judgment and habit, though 
the man will probably continue to act mainly under the sway 
of habit in spite of his opinions, yet sometimes the intrusion 
of those opinions will have for the moment an effect like 
that of Prospero's wand on the limbs of Ferdinand; and 
to be alternately impelled by habit, and checked by opinion. 



DECISION OF CHARACTER. 33 

will be a state of vexations debility. Tf two principal 
passions are opposed to each other, they will utterly dis- 
tract any mind, whatever might be the force of its facul- 
ties if acting without embarrassment. The one passion 
may be somewhat stronger than the other, and therefore 
just prevail barely enough to give a feeble impulse to the 
conduct of the man ; a feebleness which will continue till 
there be a greater disparity between these rivals, in conse- 
quence of a reinforcement to the slightly ascendent one, 
by new impressions or the gradual strengthening of habit 
forming in its favor. The disparity must be no less than 
an absolute predominance of the one and subjection of the 
other, before the prevailing passion will have at liberty 
from the intestine conflict any large measure of its force to 
throw activity into the system of conduct. If, for instance, 
a man feels at once the love of fame, which is to be gained 
only by arduous exertions, and an equal degree of the love 
of ease or pleasure, which precludes those exertions ; if he 
is eager to show off in splendor, and yet anxious to save 
money; if he has the curiosity of adventure, and yet that 
solicitude for safety, which forbids him to climb a preci- 
pice, descend into a cavern, or explore a dangerous wild ; 
if he has the stern will of a tyrant, and yet the relentings 
of a rnifti ; if he has the ambition to domineer over his 
fellow-mortals, counteracted by a reluctance to inflict so 
much mischief as it might cost to subdue them ; we may 
anticipate the irresolute contradictory tenor of his actions. 
Especially if conscience, that great troubler of the human 
breast, loudly declares against a man's wishes or projects, 
it will be a fatal enemy to decision, till it either reclaim 
the delinquent passions, or be debauched or laid dead by 
them. 

Lady Macbeth may be cited as a harmonious character, 
though the epithet seem strangely applied. She had capa- 
city, ambition, and courage; and she willed the death of 
the king. Macbeth hud still more capacity, ambition, and 
courage; and he also willed the murder of the king. But 
he had besides humanity, generosity, conscience, and some 
measure of what forms the 'power of conscience, the fear of 
a Superior Being. Consequently, when the dreadful mo- 
ment approached, he felt an insiipportable conflict between 
these opposite principles, and when it was arrived his ut- 
most courage began to fail. The worst part of his nature 



34 Foster's essay on 

fell prostrate under the power of the better ; the angel of 
goodness arrested the demon that grasped the dagger ; and 
would have taken that dagger away, if the pure demoniac 
firmness of hi.s wife, who had none of these counteracting 
principles, had not shamed and hardened him to the deed. 

The poet's delineation of Richard III. offers a dreadful 
specimen of this indivisibility of mental impulse. After 
his determination was fixed, the whole mind, with the 
compactest fidelity, supported him in prosecuting it. Se- 
curely privileged from all interference of doubt that could 
linger, or humanity that could soften, or timidity that 
could shrink, he advanced with a concentrated constancy 
through scene after scene of atrocity, still fulfilling his vow 
to '' cut his way through with a bloody axe." He did 
not waver while he pursued bis object, nor relent when he 
seized it. 

Cromwell (whom I mention as a parallel, of course not 
to Richard's wickedness, but to his inflexible vigor), lost 
his mental consistency in the latter end of a career which 
had displayed a sui)erlative example of decision. It appears 
that the wish to be a king, at last arose in a mind which had 
contemned royalty, and battled it from the land. As far 
as he really had any republican principles and partialities, 
this new desire must have been a very untoward "associate 
for them, and must have produced a schism in the breast 
where all the strong forces of thought and passion had 
acted till then in concord. The new form of ambition 
became just predominant enough to carry him, by slow 
degrees, through the embarrassment and the shame of this 
.incongruity, into an irresolute' determination to assume the 
crown ; so irresolute, that he was reduced again to a mor- 
tifying indecision by the remonstrances of some of his 
friends, which he could have slighted, and by an apprehen- 
sion of the public disapprobation, which he could have 
braved, if some of the principles of his own mind had not 
shrunk or revolted from the design. "When at last the 
motives for relinquishing this design prevailed, it was by 
so small a degree of preponderance, that his reluctant refusal 
of the offered crown was the voice of only half his soul. 

Not only two distinct counteracting passions, but one 
passion interested for two objects, both equally desirable, 
but of which the one must be sacrificed, may anniliilate in 
that instance the possibility of a resolute promptitude of 



DECISION OF CHARACTER. 85 

conduct. I recollect reading in an old divine, a story from 
some historian, applicable to this remark. A father went 
to the agents of a t}-rant, to endeavor to redeem his two 
sons, militar\' men, who, with some other captives of war, 
vere condemned to die. He offered, as a ransom, a sum 
of money, and to surrender his own life. The tyrant's 
agents who had them in charge, informed him that this 
equivalent would be accepted for one of his sons, and for 
one only, because they should be accountable for the exe- 
cution of two persons ; he might therefore choose wliich 
he would redeem. Anxious to save even one of them thus 
at the expense of his own life, he yet was unable to decide 
which sliould die, by choosing the other to live, and re- 
mained in the agony of this dilemma so long that they were 
both irreversibly ordered for execution. 



LETTER Y. 

It were absurd to suppose that any human being can 
attain a state of mind capable of acting in all instances 
invariably with the full power of determination ; but it is 
obvious that many liave possessed a habitual and very 
commanding measure of it; and I think the preceding 
remarks have taken account of its chief characteristics and 
constituent principles. A number of additional observa- 
tions remains. 

The slightest view of human affjiirs shows what fatal 
and wide-spread mischief may be caused by men of this 
character, when misled or wicked. You have but to recol- 
lect the conquerors, despots, bigots, unjust conspirators, 
and signal villains of every class, who have blasted society 
by the relentless vigor which could act consistently and 
heroically wrong. Till, therefore, the virtue of mankind 
be greater, there is reason to be pleased that so few of 
them are endowed with extraordinary decision. 

Even when dignified by wisdom and principle, this 
quality requires great care in the possessors of it to prevent 
its becoming unamiable. As it involves much practical 
assertion of superiority over other human beings, it should 



36 Foster's essay on 

he as temperate and conciliating as possible in manner; 
Jse pride will feel provoked, affection hurt, and weakness 
(ppressed. But this is not the manner which will be most 
latural to such a man; rather it will be high-toned, laconic, 
and careless of pleasing. He will have the appearance of 
keeping himself always at a distance from social equality; 
and his friends will feel as if their friendship were con- 
tinually sliding into subserviency; while his intimate con- 
nexions will think he does not attach the due importance 
either to their opinions or to their regard. His manner, 
when they differ- from him, or complain, will be too much 
like the expression of slight estimation, and sometimes of 
disdain. 

"When he can accomplish a design by his own personal 
means alone, he maybe disposed to separate himself to the 
work with the cold self-inclosed individuality on which no 
one has any hold, which seems to recognize no kindred 
being in the world, which takes little account of good 
wishes and kind concern, any more than it cares for oppo- 
sition; wliich seeks neither aid nor sympathy, and seems 
to say, I do not want any of you, and I am glad that I do 
not; leave me alone to succeed or die. This has a very 
repellent effect on the friends who wished to feel them- 
selves of some importance, in some way or other, to a 
person whom they are constrained to respect. "When 
assistance is indispensable to his undertakings, his mode of 
signifying it will seem to command, rather than invite, the 
co-operation. 

In consultation, his manner will indicate that when he ii^ 
equally with the rest in possession of the circumstances of 
the case, he does not at all expect to hear any opinions 
that shall correct his own; but is satisfied that either his 
present conception of the subject is a just one, or that his 
own mind must originate that which shall be so. This 
difference will be apparent between him and his associ- 
ates, that their manner of receiving his opinions is that of 
agreement or dissent; Ms manner of receiving theirs is 
judicial — that of sanction or rejection. He has the tone 
of autlioritatively deciding on what they say, but never 
of submitting to decision what himself says. Their coin- 
cidence with his views does not give him a firmer assur- 
ance of his being right, nor their dissent any other impres- 
sion than that of their incapacity to judge. If his feeling 



DECISION OF CHARACTER. 3lf 

took the distinct form of a reflection, it would be, Mine i? 
the business of comprehending and devising, and I am here 
to rule this company, and not to consult them ; I want 
their docility, and not their arguments; I am come, not to 
seek their assistance in tliinking, but to determine their 
concurrence in executing what is already thouglit for them. 
Of cour^e, many suggestions and reasons which appear 
important to those they come from, will be disposed of by 
him with a transient attention, or a light laciMty, that will 
seem very disre^ipectful to persons who possibly hesitate to 
admit that he is a demi-god, and that they are but idiots. 
Lord Chatham, in going out of the House of Commons, 
just as one of the speakers against him concluded his 
speech by emphatically urging what he perhaps rightly 
thouglit the unanswerable question, '•''Where can we find 
means to support such a war?" turned round a mo- 
ment, and gaily chanted, " Gentle shepherd, tell me 
where ?" 

Even the assenting convictions, and practical compli- 
ances, yielded by degrees to this decisive man, may be 
somewhat undervalued ; as they will appear to him no 
more than simply coming, and that very slowly, to a right 
apprehension; wliereas he understood and decided justly 
from the first, and has been right all this while. 

He will be in danger of rejecting the just claims of 
charity for a little tolerance to the prejudices, hesitation, 
and timidity of those with whom he has to act. He will 
say to himself, I wish there were anything like manhood 
among the beings called men ; and that they could have 
the sense and spirit not to let themselves be hampered by 
so many silly notions and childish fears! Why cannot 
they either determine with some promptitude, or let me, 
that can, do it for them? Am I to wait till debility be- 
come strong, and folly wise? If full scope be allowed to 
these tendencies, they may give too much of the character 
of a tyrant to even a man of elevated virtue, since, in the 
consciousness of the right intention, and the assurance of 
the wise ct)ntrivance, of his designs, he will hold himself 
justified in being regardless of everything but the accom- 
plisliment of them. He will forget all respect for the 
feelings and liberties of beings who are accounted but a 
subordinate machinery, to be actuated, or to be thrown 
4 



SB Foster's essay on 

aside when not actuated, by the spring of his commanding 
spirit. 

I have before asserted that this strong character may be 
exhibited with a mildness, or at least, temperance of man- 
ner; and that, generally, it will thus best secure its efficacy. 
But this mildness must often be at the cost of great effort; 
and how much considerate policy or benevolent forbear- 
ance it will require, for a man to exert his utmost vigor in 
the very task, as it will appear to him at the time, of 
cramping that vigor ! Lycurgus appears to have been a 
high example of conciliating patience in the resolute 
prosecution of designs to be effected among a perverse 
multitude. 

It is probable that the men most distinguished for de- 
cision have not in general possessed a large share of tender- 
ness ; and it is easy to imagine, that the laws of our nature 
will, with great difficulty, allow the combination of the 
refined sensibilities with a hard, never-shrinking, never- 
yielding firmness. Is it not almost of the essence of this 
temperament to be free from even the perception of such 
impressions as cause a mind, weak through susceptibility, 
to relax or waver; just as the skin of the elephant, or the 
armor of the rhinoceros, would be but indistinctly sensi- 
ble to the application of a force by which a small animal, 
with a skin of thin and delicate texture, would be pierced 
or lacerated to death? No doubt this firmness consists 
partly in a commanding and repressive power over feel- 
ings, but it may consist fully as much in not having them. 
To be exquisitely alive to gentle impressions, and yet to be 
able to preserve, when the prosecution of a design requires 
it, an immovable heart amidst the most imperious causes 
of subduing emotion, is perhaps not an impossible consti- 
tution of mind, but it must be the rarest endowment of 
humanity. 

If you take a view of the first rank of decisive men, you 
will observe that their faculties have been too much bent 
to arduous eft'ort, their souls have been kept in too mili- 
tary an attitude, they have been begirt with too much 
iron, for the melting movements of the heart. Their 
whole being appears too much arrogated and occupied by 
the spirit of severe design, urging them toward some 
defined end, to be sufficiently at ease for the indolent com- 



DECISION OF CHARACTER. 39 

placency, the soft lassitude of gentle affections, which love 
to surrender themselves to the present felicities, forgetful 
of all ''enterprises of great pith and moment.'" The man 
seems rigorously intent still on his own affairs, as he walks, 
or regales, or mingles with domestic society; and appears 
to despise all the feelings that will not take rank with the 
grave lahors and decisions of intellect, or coalesce with the 
unremitting passion which is his spring of action ; he 
values not feelings which he cannot employ either as wea- 
pons or as engines. He loves to he actuated by a passion 
so strong as to compel into exercise the utmost force of 
his being, and fix him in a tone, compared with which, the 
gentle affections, if he had felt thein, would be accounted 
tameness, and their exciting causes insipidity. 

Yet we cannot willingly admit that those gentle affec- 
tions are totally incompatible with the most impregnable 
resolution and vigor; nor can we help believing that such 
men as Tiraoleon, Alfred, and Gustavus Adolphus, must 
have been very fascinating associates in private and do- 
mestic life, whenever the urgency of their affiiirs would 
allow them to withdraw from the interests of statesmen 
and warriors, to indulge the affections of men : most fasci- 
nating, for, with relations or friends who had any right 
perceptions, an effect of the strong character would be 
recognized in a peculiar charm imparted by it to the gentle 
moods and seasons. The firmness and energy of the man 
whom nothing could subdue, would exalt the quality of the 
tenderness which softened him to recline. 

But it were much easier to enumerate a long train of 
ancient and modern examples of the vigor unmitigated by 
the sensibility. Perhaps, indeed, these indomitable spirits 
have yielded sometimes to some species of love, as a mode 
of amusing their passions for an interval, till greater 
engagements have summoned them into their proper ele- 
ment; when they have shown how little the sentiment 
was an element of the heart, by the ease with which they 
could relinquish the temporary favorite. In other cases, 
where there have not been the selfish inducements, which 
this passion supplies, to the exhibition of something like 
softness, and where they have been left to the trial of what 
they might feel of the sympathies of humanity in their 
simplicity, no rock on earth could be harder. 

T le celebrated King of Prussia o curs to rae as a capital 



40 Foster's essay on 

instance of the decisive character ; and there occurs to mc, 
at the same time, one of the anecdotes related of him.* 
Intending to make, in the night, an important movement 
in his camp, which was in sight of the enemy, he gave 
orders that hy eight o'clock all tlie lights in the camp 
should be put out, on pain of death. The moment that 
the time was passed, he walked out himself to see whether 
all were dark. He found a liglit in the tent of a Captain 
Zieturn, which he entered just as the o.ficer was folding up 
a letter. Zieturn knew him, and instantly fell on his knees 
to entreat his mercy. The king asked to whom he had 
been writing ; he said it was a letter to his wife, which he 
had retained the candle these few minutes beyond the time 
in order to finish. The king coolly ordered him to rise, 
and write one line more, which he should dictate. This 
line was to inform his wife, without any explanation, that 
by such an hour the next day he should be a dead man. 
The letter was then sealed, and dispatched as it had been 
intended ; and, the next day, the captain was executed. 
I say nothing of the justice of the punishment itself; but 
this cool barbarity to the affection both of the officer and 
his wife, proved how little the decisive hero and reputed 
philosopher was capable of the tender afiections, or of 
sympathizing with their pains. 

At tlie same time, it is proper to observe, that the case 
may easily occur, in which a man, sustaining a high respon- 
sibility, miist be resolute to act in a manner which may 
make him appear to want the finer feelings. He may be 
placed under the necessity of doing what he knows will 
cause pain to persons of a character to feel it severely. 
He may be obliged to resist afiectionate wishes, expostula- 
tions, entreaties, and tears. Take this same instance. 
Suppose the wife of Zietern had come to supplicate for 
him, not only the remission of the punishment of death, 
but an exemption from any other severe punishment. 



* The authenticity of this auecd'^te, which I read in some trifling fugitive 
publication many years since, has been questioned. Possibly enough it 
might be one of the many stories only half true, which could not fail to go 
abroad concerning a man who made, in his day, so great a figure. But as 
it does not at all misrepresent the general character of his mind, since there 
are many incontrovertible facts, proving against him as great a degree of 
cruelty as this anecdote would cliarge on him, the want of means to prove 
this one fact does not seem to impose any necessity for omitting the illus- 
tration. 



DECISION OF CHARACTER. 41 

which was perhaps justly due to the violation of such an 
order, issued no doubt for important reasons; it had then 
probably been the duty and the virtue of the commander 
to deny tlie most interesting suppliant, and to resist the 
most pathetic appeals which could have been made to his 
feelmo;s. 



LETTER yi. 

Various circumstances might be specified as adapted to 
confirm such a character as I have attempted to describe. 
I shall notice two or three. 

And first, oj^position. The passions which inspirit men 
to resistance, and sustain them in it, such as anger, indig- 
nation, and resentment, are evidently far stronger than 
those which have reference to friendly objects; and if any 
of these strong passions are frequently excited by opposi- 
tion, they infuse a certain quality into the general tem- 
perament of the mind, which remains after the immediate 
excitement is passed. They continually strengthen the 
principle of re-action; they put the mind in the habitual 
array of defense and self-assertion, and often give it the 
aspect and the posture of a gladiator, when there appears 
no confronting combatant. When these passions are pro- 
voked' in such a person as I describe, it is probable that 
each excitement is followed by a greater increase of this 
principle of re-action than in other men, because this result 
is so congenial with his naturally resolute disposition. 
Let him be opposed then, throughout the prosecution of 
one of his designs, or in the general tenor of his actions, 
and tliis constant opposition would render him the service 
of an ally, by augmenting the resisting and defying power 
of his mind. Ah irresoinre spirit indeed might be quelled 
and subjugated by a formidable and ]iersisting opposition ; 
but the strong wind wliich blows out a tajjer, exasperates 
a powerful fire (if there be fuel enough) to an indefinite 
intensity. It would be found, in fact, on a recollection of 
instances, that many of the persons most conspicuous for 
decision, have been exercised and forced to this high tone 
of spirit in having to make their way through opposition 



42 Foster's essay on 

and contest; a discipline under which they were wrought 
to both a prompt acuteness of foculty, and an inflexibility 
of temper, hardly attainable even by minds of great natural 
sti-eiigth, if brought forward into the affairs of life under 
iiidnliient auspices, and in habits of easy and friendly coin- 
cidence with those around them. Often, however, it is 
granted, the firnmess matured by such discipline is, in a 
man of virtue, accompanied with a Catonic severity, and 
in a mere man of the world is an inhuraanized repulsive 
hardness. 

Desertion may be another cause conducive to the conso- 
lidation of this character. A kind, mutually reclining 
dependence, is certainly for the happiness of human beings ; 
but this necessarily prevents the development of some great 
individual powers wliich would be forced into action by a 
state of abandonment. I lately happened to notice, with 
some surprise, an ivy, which finding nothing to cling to 
beyond a certain point, had shot off into a bold, elastic 
stem, with an air of as much indei)endence as any branch 
of oak in the vicinity. /rSo a human being thrown, whe- 
ther by cruelty, justice, or accident, from all social sup- 
port or kindness, if he have any vigor of spirit, and be not 
in the bodily debility of either childhood or age, will begin 
to act for himself with a resolution which will appear like 
a new faculty. * And the most absolute inflexibility is likely 
Mt> characterize the resolution of an individual who is 
obliged to deliberate without consultation, and execute 
without assistance. He will disdain to yield to beings 
who have rejected him, or to forego a particle of his 
designs or advantages in conce>;sion to the opinions or the 
will of all the world. Himself, his pursuits, and his in- 
terests, are emphatically his own. '' The world is not his 
Mend, nor the world's law ;" and therefore he becomes 
regardless of everything but its power, of which his policy 
carefully takes the measure, in order to ascertain his own 
means of action and impunity, as set against the world's 
menus of annoyance, prevention, and retaliation. 

Jf this person have but little humanity or principle, he 
will be(!ome a mis.-intiirope, or perhnps a villain, who will 
resemble a solitary wild beast of the night, which makes 
prfv of everything it can overpower, and cares for nothing 
but fire. If he be capable of grand conception and enter- 
prise, he may, like Spartacus, make a daring attempt 



DECISION OF CHARACTER. 43 

against the whole social order of the state where he has 
been oppressed. If he be of great humanity and principle, 
he may become one of the noblest of mankind, and disphiy 
a generous virtue to which society had no claim, and which 
it is not worthy to reward, if it should at last become in- 
clined. No, lie will say, give your rewards to another; as 
it has been no part of my object to gain them, they are not 
necessary to my satisfaction. I have done good, without 
expecting your gratitude, and without caring for your 
approbation. If conscience and. my Creator had not been 
more auspicious than you, none of these virtues would ever 
have opened to the day. When I ought to have been an 
object of jour compassion, I might have perished; now, 
when you find I can serve your interests, you will affect to 
acknowledge me and reward me ; but I will abide by my 
destiny to verify the principle that virtue is its own 
reward. In either case, virtuous or wicked, the man who 
has been compelled to do without assistance, will spurn 
interference. , 

Common life would supply illustrations of the effect of 
desertion, in examples of some of the most resolute men 
having become such partly from being left friendless in 
early life. The case has also sometimes happened, that a 
wife and mother, remarkable perhaps for gentleness and 
acquiescence before, has been compelled, after the death of 
her husband on whom she depended, and when she has 
met with nothing but neglect or unkindness from rela- 
tions and those who had been accounted friends, to adopt 
a plan of her own, and has executed it with a resolution 
which has astonished even herself. 

One regrets that the signal examples, real or fictitious, 
that most readily present themselves, are still of the de- 
praved order. I fancy myself to see Marius sitting on the 
ruins of Carthage, where no arch or column, that remained 
unshaken amidst the desolation, could present a stronger 
image of a firmness beyond the power of disaster to subdue. 
The rigid constancy which had before distinguished his cha- 
racter, would be aggravated by its finding himself thus an 
outcast from all human society; and he would probably shake 
ort' every sentiment that had ever for an instant checked ids 
designs in the way of reminding him of social obligations. 
The lonely individual was placed in the alternative of 
becoming the victim or the antagonist of the power of the 



44 Foster's essay on 

empire. "While, with a spirit capable of confronting that 
power, he resolved, amidst those ruins, on a great experi- 
ment, he would enjoy a kind of sullen luxury in surveying 
the dreary situation into which he was driven, and recol- 
lecting tlie circumstance of his expulsion; since they would 
seem to him to sanction an unHmited vengeance ; to pre- 
sent what had been his country as the pure legitimate prize 
for desperate achievement; and to give him a proud con- 
sequence in being reduced to maintain singly a mortal 
quarrel against the bulk of mankind. He would exult that 
the very desolation of his condition rendered but the more 
complete the proof of his possessing a mind which no mis- 
fortunes could repress or intimidate, and that it kindled an 
animosity intense enough to force that mind from firm 
endurance into impetuous action. He would feel that he 
became stronger for enterprise, in proportion as his exile 
and destitution rendered him more inexorable; and the 
sentiment with wiiich he quitted his solitude would be — 
Rome expelled her patriot, let her receive, her evil 
genius. 

The decision of Satan, in Paradise Lost, is represented 
as consolidated by his reflections on his hopeless banish- 
ment from heaven, which oppress liiin with sadness for 
some moments, but he soon resumes his in'vincible spirit, 
and utters the impious but sublime sentiment, 

" What matter where, if 1 be still the same f " 

You remember how this effect of desertion is represented 
in Charles de Moor.* His father's supposed cruel rejection 
consigned him irretrievably to the career of atrocious en- 
terprise, in Avhich, notwithstanding the most interesting 
emotions of humanity and tenderness, he persisted with 
heroic determination till he considered his destiny as 
accomplished. 

Success tends considerably to reinforce this commanding 
quality. It is true that a man possessing it in a hijj^h 
dejj:ree will not lose it by occasional failure; for if the 
failure was caused by something entirely beyond the reach 
of human knowledge and ability, he will remember that 
fortitude is the virtue required in meeting unfavorable 

* A wildly extravagant, certainly, but most imposing and gigantic cha- 
racter in Schiller's tragedy, The Hobhers. 



DECISION OF CHARACTER. 45 

events which in no sense depended on him ; if by some- 
thii)g which might have been known and prevented, he 
will feel that even the experience of failure completes his 
competence, by admonishing his prudence, and enlarging 
his understanding. Bnt as schemes and measures of action, 
rightly adjusted to their proposed ends, will generally 
attain them, continual failure would show something essen- 
tially wrong in a man's system, and destroy his confidence, 
or else expose it as mere absurdity or obstinacy. On the 
contrary, when a man has ascertained by experiment the 
justness of his calculations and the extent of his powers, 
when he has measured his force with various persons, 
when he has braved and vanquished difficulty, and partly 
seized the prize, he will carry forward the re^^ult of all this 
in an intrepid self-sufficiency for whatever may yet await 
him. 

In some men, whose lives have been spent in constant 
perils, continued success has produced a confidence beyond 
its rational effect, by inspiring a presumption that the 
common laws of human affairs were, in their case, super- 
seded by the decrees of a peculiar destiny, securing them 
from almost the possibility of disaster; and this supersti- 
tious feeling, though it has displaced the unconquerable 
resolution from its rational basis, has often produced the 
most wonderful effects. This dictated Caesar's expression 
to the mariner who was terrified at the storm and billows, 
" What art thou afraid of? thy vessel carries Caesar." The 
brave men in the times of the English Commonwealth were, 
some of them, indebted in a degree for their magnanimity 
to this idea of a special destination, entertained as a reli- 
gious sentiment. 

The willfulness of an obstinate person is sometimes forti- 
fied by some single instance of remarkable success in his 
undertakings, which is promptly recalled in every case 
where his decisions are questioned or opposed, as a proof, 
or ground of just presumption, that he must in this instance 
too be right ; especially if that one success happened con- 
trary to your predictions. 

I shall only add, and without illustration, that the habit 
of associating with inferiors^ among whom a man can 
always, and therefore does always, take the preced^ce and 
give the law, is conducive to a subordinate, coarse kind of 
decision of character. You may see this exemplified any 



46 Foster's essay on 

day in an ignorant country 'squire among his vassals; 
especially if he wear the lordly superaddition of Justice of 
the Peace. 

In viewing the characters and actions of the men who 
have possessed in imperial eminence tiie qnality which I 
have attempted to describe, one cannot but wish it were 
possible to know how much of this mighty superiority was 
created by the circumstances in which they were placed ; 
bnt it is inevitable to believe that there was some vast 
intrinsic ditference from ordinary men in the original con- 
stitutional structure of the mind. In observing lately a 
man who appeared too vacant almost to think of a purpose, 
too indifferent to resolve uptin it, and too sluggish to exe- 
cute it if he had resolved, I was distinctly struck with tlie 
idea of the distance betwe n hiui and Marius, of whom I 
hapi)ened to have been reading; and it was infinitely be- 
yond my power to believe that any circumstances on 
earth, though ever so perfectly combined aiul adapted, 
would have produced in this man, if placed under tiieir 
fullest intluence from his childhood, any resemblance (un- 
less, perhaps, the courage to enact a diminutive imitation 
in revenge and cruelty) of the formidable Roman. 

It is needless to discuss whether a person who is practi- 
cally evinced, at the age of maturity, to want the stainina 
of this ciiaracter, can, by any process, acquire it. Indeed, 
such a person cannot have sufficient force of will to make 
the complete experiment. If there were the unconquer- 
able will that would persist to seize all possible means, and 
a[)ply them in order to attain, if I may so express it, this 
stronger mode of active existence, it would prove the pos- 
session already of a high degree of the character sought; 
and if there is not this will^ how then is its supposed 
atrainment possible? 

Yet though it is improbable that a very irresolute man 
can ever become a habitual decisive one, it should be 
observed, that sinoe there are degrees of this powerful 
quality, and since the essential principles of it, vvlien par- 
tially existing in those degrees, cannot be supposed subject 
to definite and ultimate limitation, like the dimension of 
the bodily stature, it migiit be possible to apply a disci- 
pline which should advance a man from the lowest degree 
to the irest, from that to the third, and how much furtlier, 
it will be worth his trying if his first successful expire- 



DECISION OF CHARACTER. 4*7 

ments have not cost more in the efforts for making the 
attainment than he judges likely to be repaid by any good 
he shall gain from its exercise. I have but a very imper- 
fect conception' of the discipline ; but will suggest a hint 
or two. 

In the first place, the indispensable necessity of a clear 
and comprehensive knowledge of the concerns before us, 
seems too obvious for remark ; and yet no man has been 
sufficiently sensible of it, till he has been placed in circum- 
stances Avhich forced him to act before he had time, or 
after he had made ineffectual efforts, to obtain the needful 
information and understanding. The oain of having brought 
things to an unfortunate issue, is hardly greater than ihat 
of proceeding in the conscious ignorance which continually 
threatens such an issue. While thus proceeding at hazard, 
under some compulsion wliich makes it impossible for him 
to remain in inaction, a man looks round for information 
as eagerly as a benighted wanderer would for the light of 
a human dwelling. He perhaps labors to recall what he 
thinks he once heard or read as relating to a similar situa- 
tion, without dreaming at that time that such instruction 
could ever come to be of importance to him; and is dis- 
tressed to find his best recollection so indistinct as to be 
useless. He would give a considerable sum, if some par- 
ticular book could be brought to him at the instant; or a 
certain document which he believes to be in existence; or 
the detail of a process, the terms of a prescription, or the 
model of an implement. He thinks how many people 
know, without its being of any present use to them, 
exactly what could be of such important service to him, if 
he could know it. In some cases, a line, a sentence, a 
monosyllable of affirming or denying, or a momentary 
sight of an object, would be inexpressibly valuable and 
welcome. And he resolves that if he can once happily 
escape from the present difficulty, he will apply himself 
day and night to obtain knowledge, not concerning one 
particular matter only, but divers others, in provision 
against possible emergencies, rather than be so involved 
and harassed again. It might really be of service to have 
been occasionally forced to act under the disadvantage of 
conscious ignorance (if the affdr was not so important as 
to allow the consequence to be very injurious) as an effec- 
tual lesson on the necessity of knowledge in order to deci- 



48 Foster's essay on 

sion either of plan or execution. It must indeed be an 
extreme case that will compel a considerate man to act in 
the absence of knowledge ; yet he may sometimes be neces- 
sitated to proceed to action, when he is sensible his infor 
mation is far from extending to the whole of the concern 
in which he is g-'ing to commit himself. And in this case, 
he will feel no little uneasiness, while transacting that part 
of it in which his knowledge is competent, when he looks 
forward to the point where that knowledge terminates; 
unless he be conscious of possessing an exceedingly prompt 
faculty of catching information at the moment he wants it 
for use; as Indians set out on a long journey with but a 
trifling stock of provisions, because they are sure that their 
bows or guns will procure it by the -way. It is one of the 
nicest points of wisdom to decide how much less than com- 
plete knowledge, in any question of practical interest, will 
warrant a man to venture on an undertaking, in the pre- 
sumption that the deficiency will be supplied in time to 
prevent either perplexity or disaster. 

A thousand familiar instances sliow the effect of complete 
knowledge on determination. An artisan may be said to 
be decisive as to the mode of vrorking a piece of iron or 
wood, because he is certain of the proper process and the 
effect. A man perfectly acquainted with the intricate 
paths of a woodland district, takes the right one without a 
moment's hesitation; while a stranger, who has only some 
very vague information, is lost in perplexity. It is easy to 
imagine what a number of circumstances may occur in the 
course of a life, or even of a year,, in which a man cannot 
thus readily determine, and thus confidently proceed with- 
out a compass and an exactness of knowledge which few 
persons have application enough to acquire. And it would 
be frightful to know to what extent human interests are 
committed to the direction of ignorance. What a consola- 
tory doctrine is that of a particular Providence! 

In connexion with the necessity of knowledge, I would 
suggest the importance of cultivating, with the utmost 
industry, a conclusive manner of thinking. In the first 
place, let the general course of thinking partake of the 
nature of reasoning ; and let it be remembered that this 
name does not belong to a series of thoughts and fancies 
which follow one another without deduction or dependence, 
and which can therefore no more bring a subject to a pro- 



DECISION OF CHARACTER. 49 

per issue, than a number of separate links will answer the 
mechanical purpose of a chain. The conclusion which 
terminates such a series, does not deserve the name of 
result or conclusion^ since it has little more than a casual 
connexion with what went before ; the conclusion might as 
properly have taken place at an earlier point of the train, 
or have been deferred till that train had been extended 
much further. Instead of having been busily employed in 
this kind of thinking, for perhaps many hoiirs, a man 
might possibly as well have been sleeping all the time ; 
since the single thought which is now to determine his 
conduct, might have happened to be the first thought that 
occurred to him on awaking. It only happens to occur to 
him now ; it does 'not follow from what he has been think- 
ing these hours; at least, he cannot prove that some other 
thought might not just as appropriately have come in its 
place at the end, and to make an end, of this long series. 
It is easy to see how feeble that determination is likely to 
be, which is formed on so narrow a ground as the last acci- 
dental idea that comes into the mind, or on so loose a 
ground as this crude uncombined assemblage of ideas. In- 
deed it is difficult to form a determination at all on such 
slight ground. A man delays, and waits for some more 
satisfactory thought to occur to him; and perhaps he has. 
not waited long, before an idea arises in his mind of a 
quite contrary tendency to the last. As this additional 
idea is not, more than that which preceded it, the result 
of any process of reasoning, nor brings with it any argu- 
ments, it may be expected to give place soon to another, 
and still another ; and they are all in succession of equal 
authority, that is properly of none. If at last an idea 
occurs to him which seems of considerable authority, he 
may here make a stand, and adopt his resolution, with 
firmness, as he thinks, and commence the execution. But 
still, if he cannot see whence the principle which has deter- 
mined him derives its authority — on what it holds for 
that authority — his resolution is likely to prove treacherous 
and evanescent in any serious trial. A principle so little 
verified by sound reasoning, is not terra firma for a man to 
trust himself upon ; it is only as a slight incrustation on a 
yielding element ; it is like the sand compacted into a thin 
surface on the lake Serbonis, which broke away under the 
unfortunate army which had begun to advance on it, mis- 
5 



so Foster's essay on 

taking it for solid ground. These remarks may seem to 
refer only to a single instance of deliberation ; but tliey are 
equally applicable to all the delfberatiitns and undertak- 
ings of a man's life; the same connected manner of think- 
ing, which is so necessary to give firmness of determination 
and of conduct in a particular instance, will, if habitual, 
greatly contribute to form a decisive character. 

Not only should thinking be thus reduced, by a strong 
and patient discipline, to a train or process, in which all 
the parts at once depend upon and support one another, 
but also this train should be followed on to a full conclu- 
sion. It should be held as a law generally in force, that 
the question must be disposed of before it is let alone. The 
mind may carry on this accurate process to some length, 
and then stop through indolence, or start away through 
levity; but it can never possess that rational confidence in 
its opinions which is requisite to the character in question, 
till it is conscious of acquiring them from an exercise of 
thought continued on to its result. Tlie habit of tliinking 
thus completely is indispensable to the general character 
of decision ; and in any particular instance, it is found that 
short pieces of courses of reasoning, thougli correct as far 
as they go, are inadequate to make a man master of the 
immediate concern. They are besides of little value for aid 
to future thinking; because from being left thus incomplete 
they are but slightly retained by the mind, and soon sink 
away ; in the same manner as the walls of a structure left 
unfinished speedily moulder. 

After these remarks, I should take occasion to observe, 
that a vigorous exercise of thought may sometimes for a 
while seem to increase the difficulty of decision, by dicover- 
ing a great number of unthought-of reasons for a measure 
and against it, so that the most discriminating mind may, 
during a short space, find itself in the state of the magnetic 
needle under the equator. But no case in the world can 
really have a perfect equality of opposite reasons ; nor will 
it long appear to have it, in the estimate of a clear and 
well-disciplined intellect, which after some time will ascer- 
tain, though the difference is small, which side of the que:«- 
tion has ten, and which has but nine. At any rate, this is 
the mind to come nearest in the approximation. 

Another thing that would powerfully assist toward 
complete decision, both in the particular instance, and in 



DECISION OF CHARACTER. 61 

the general spirit of the character, is for a man to place 
himself in a situation analogous to that in which Caisar 
placed his soldiers, when he burnt the ships which brought 
thetn to land. If his judgment is really decided, let hiin 
commit himself irretrievably, by doing something which 
shull oblige him to do more, which shall lay on liim tiie 
necessity of doing all. If a man resolves as a general in- 
tention to be a philanthropist, I would say to him. Form 
some actual plan of philanthropy, and begin the execution 
of it to-morrow (if I may not say to-day) so explicitly that 
you cannot relinquish it without becoming degraded even 
in your own estimation. If a man would be a hero, let 
him, if it be possible to find a good cause in arms, go pre- 
sently to the camp. If a man is desirous of a travelling 
adventure through distant countries, and deliberately 
approves both his purpose and his scheme, let him actually 
prepare to set off. Let him not still dwell, in imagination, 
on mountains, rivers, and temples; but give directions 
about his remittances, his personal equipments, or the car- 
riage, or the vessel, in which he is to go. Ledyard sur- 
prised the official person who asked him how soon he could 
be ready to set off for the interior of Africa, by replying 
promptly and firmly, "To-morrow." 

Again, it is highly conducive to a manly firmness, that 
the interests in which it is exerted should be of a dignified 
order, so as to give the passions an ample scope, and a 
noble object. The degradation they suffer in being devoted 
to mean and trivial pursuits, often perceived to be such in 
spite of every fallacy of the imagination, would in general, 
I should think, also debilitate their energy, and therefore 
preclude strength of character, to which nothing can be 
more adverse, than to have the fire of the passions damped 
by the mortification of feeling contempt for the object, as 
often as its meanness is betrayed by failure of the delusion 
which invests it. 

And finally, I would repeat that one should think a man's 
own conscientious approbation of his conduct must be of 
vast importance to his decision in the outset, and his per- 
severing constancy; and I would attribute it to defect of 
memory that a greater proportion of the examples, intro- 
duced for illustration in this essay, do not exhibit goodness 
in union with the moral and intellectual power so conspi- 
cuous in the quality described. Certainly a bright con- 



62 Foster's essay on 

stellation of such examples might be displayed ; yet it is 
the mortifying truth that much tlie greater number of men 
pre-eminent for decision, have been such as could not have 
their own serious approbation, except through an utter 
perversion of judgment or abolition of conscience. And it 
is melancholy to contemplate beings represented in our 
imagination as of adequate power (when they possessed 
great external means to give effect to the force of their 
minds), for the grandest utihty, for vindicating each good 
cause which has languished in a world adverse to all good- 
ness, and for intimidating the collective vices of a nation or 
an age — to contemplate such beings as becoming themselves 
the mighty exemplars, giants, and champions of those 
vices ; and it is fearful to follow them in thought, from 
this region, of which not all the powers and difficulties 
and inhabitants together could have subdued their ada- 
mantine resolution, to the Supreme Tribunal where that 
resolution must tremble and melt away. 



rOSTEE'S THOUGHTS. 



CHAPTER I. 

EXISTENCE, ATTRIBUTES, WORKS AND PROVIDENCE, 
OF GOD. 

1. Any order of serious rejection leads to God. — 
The thought of virtue would suggest the thought of 
both a lawgiver and a rewarder ; the thought of crime, 
of an avenger ; the thought of sorrow, of a consoler ; 
the thought of an inscrutable mystery, of an intelli- 
gence that understands it ; the thought of that ever- 
moving activity which prevails in the system of the 
universe, of a supreme agent ; the thought of the hu- 
man family, of a great father ; the thought of all being 
not necessary and self-existent, of a creator ; the 
thought of life, of a preserver ; and the thought of 
death, of an uncontrollable disposer. By what dex- 
terity, therefore, of irreligious caution, did you avoid 
precisely every track where the idea of him would 
have met you, or elude that idea if it came ? And 
what must sound reason pronounce of a mind which, 
in the train of millions of thoughts, has wandered to 
all things under the sun, to all the permanent objects 
or vanishing appearances in the creation, but never 
fixed its thought on the Supreme Reality ; never ap- 
proached, like Moses, " to see this great sight ?" 

2. Omnipresence mysteriously/ veiled. — Oh why is 
it so possible that this greatest inhabitant of every 

5* 



54 Foster's thoughts. 

place where men are living should be the last whose 
society they seek, or of whose beinc: constantly near 
tliein they feel the importance ? Why is it possible 
to be surrounded with the intelligent Reality, which 
exists wherever we are, with attributes that are infi- 
nite, and not feel, respecting all other things which 
may be attempting to press on our minds and affect 
their character, as if they retained with difficulty 
their shadows of existence, and were continually on 
the point of vanishing into nothing ? Why is this 
stupendous Intelligence so retired and silent, while 
present, i% all the scenes of the earth, and in all 
the paths and abodes of men ! Why does he k|ep 
his glory invisible behind the shades and visions of 
the material world ? Why does not this latest glory 
sometimes beam forth with such a manifestation as 
could never be forgotten, nor ever be remembered 
without an emotion of religious fear ? 

3. Enlarged conception of the Deity. — How all lit- 
tle systematic forms of theology vanish from the soul 
in the sublime endeavor to recognize, amid his own 
amazing works, the Deity of tht universe! — that is, 
to form such an idea of him as shall be felt to be wor- 
thy to represent the Creator and preserving Governor 
of such a scene. 

4. Overawing sense of God's omniscience. — How is 
it possible to forget the solicitude which should ac- 
company the consciousness that such a being is con- 
tinually darting upon us the beams of observant 
thought (if we may apply such a term to Omnisci- 
ence) ; that we are exposed to the piercing inspection 
compared to which the concentrated attention of all 
the beings in the universe besides would be but as 
the powerless gaze of an infant ? Why is faith, that 
faculty of spiritual apprehension, so absent, or so in- 
comparably more ^low and reluctant to receive a just 
perception of the grandest of its objects, than the 
senses are adapted to receive the impressions of 



BEING AND ATTRIBUTES OF GOD. 65 

theirs ? While there is a Spirit pervading the nni- 
verse with an infinite energy of being, why have the 
few particles of dust which enclose ov>r spirits the 
power to intercept all sensible communication with 
it, and to place them as in a vacuity, where the sacred 
Essence had been precluded or extinguished ? 

5. A contemplation of God as a Spirit — invisi- 
ble in his presence, adapted to awaken awe and ap- 
prehension. — Much is seeing, feeling man actuated 
by the objects around him. All his powers are roused, 
impelled, directed, by impressions made on his sen- 
sitive organs ; yet objects of sense have only a defi- 
nite force upon him. A hundred weight crushes a 
man's strength to a certain degree, and no more : he 
sustains and bears it away. On the edge of the ocean 
he may tremble at the vast expanse, but he tries the 
depth near the shore, and finds it but a few feet, and 
no longer fears to enter it. The waves can not over- 
top his head ; or, is it deep ? — he can swim, and no 
longer regards it with fear. Nay, he builds a ship, 
and makes this tremendous ocean his servant, wields 
its vastness for his own use, dives to its deep bottom 
to rob it of its treasures, or makes its surface convey 
him to distant shores. A much smaller object shall 
affect him more, when his senses are less distinctly 
acted upon, but his imagination is somewhat aroused. 
When he travels in the dark, he starts at a slight but 
indistinct noise ; he knows not but it may be a wild 
beast lurking, or a robber ready to seize on him. 
Could he have distinctly seen what alarmed him, he 
had undauntedly passed on ; it was only the moving 
of the leaves waved gently by the wind. He stops, 
be considers well, for he hears the sound of water 
falling ; a gleam from its foaming surface sparkles in 
his eye, but he can not tell how near to it, or how 
distant ; how exactly it might be in his path ; how 
tremendously deep the abyss into which he may fall 
at the next step. Had it been daylight, could he 



56 Foster's thoughts. 

have examined it thoroughly, he had then passed it 
without notice ; it is only the rill of a small ditch in 
the roadside ; his own foot could have stopped the 
trickling current. This effect of indistinctoess rous- 
ing the imagination is finely depicted in Job iv. 14. 
Eliphaz describes it thus : " Fear came upon me and 
trembliug, which made all my bones to shake. Then 
a spirit passed before my face ; the hair of my flesh 
stood up : it stood still, but I could not discern the 
form thereof." The senses in this description are 
but slightly affected : the eye could not discern any 
specific form, the touch could not examine the pre- 
cise nature of the object ; the imagination therefore 
had full scope, the mind was roused beyond the power 
of sensible objects to stimulate it, and the body 
felt an agitation greater than if its senses had been 
more fully acted upon. " He trembled, the hairs of 
his flesh stood up. He could not discern the form,'' 
it might therefore be terrific in its shape or tremen- 
dous in its size. " It stood still," as if to do some- 
thing to him ; to speak ; perhaps to smite or to de- 
stroy I And how could he guard against that which 
he could not see, could not tell whence or what it 
was ; that which, from what he could discover, and 
still more from what he could- not discover, seemed 
to be no mortal substance to which he was accus- 
tomed, and with which, with cares and courage, he 
might deal safely ; but a spirit utterly beyond his im- 
pression, having unknown power to impress even him, 
who can tell in what degree ? The certainty of an 
object so near him, joined to the uncertainty of what 
might be his powers, intentions, and natural opera- 
tions, impressed him deeply with awe, expectation, 
and anxiety. How absurd, then, how contrary to 
all their feelings in other cases, is the conduct of in- 
fidels who affect to despise God — to deny his exist- 
ence because they can not see him — or, without af- 
fecting this, do actually forget and do him despise, 



BEING AND ATTRIBUTES OF GOD. 51 

by occasion of this circumstance I mecf who can be 
appalled at some distant danger, and grow courage- 
ous at what is near at hand — who trembled at a fel- 
low-man, or crawling reptile, and only show hardi- 
hood when their foe is Almighty, 

Without inquiring what Eiiphaz saw, let us apply 
these ideas to the Supreme Being ; let us meditate on 
an object of infinitely greater, nearer importance — 
" the invisible God," the most impressively important 
because invisible. Let us, for a moment, suppose the 
contrary to be the case : suppose the Deity to be the 
object of our senses — he then loses much of his ma- 
jesty ; he becomes fixed to one spot, that in which we 
can see him. He must be distant from many other 
places, and when revealing himself in other places, 
must be far distant from us, even at a time when we 
most need his presence. Nay, we should begin to 
compute him ; to philosophize upon and attempt ex- 
periments with him. Were he vast as the starry 
heavens, we could measure him : bright as yonder 
sun, we could contrive to gaze at him ; energetic as 
the vivid lightning, we could bring him down to play 
around us. In no form can we conceive of his being 
an object of sense, but we sink him to a creature ; 
give him some definable shape, reduce him to a man 
or mere idol, and we have need to provide him a tem- 
ple made with hands for his accommodation. If, in- 
deed, there were any doubt of his existence (but that 
man is incapable of reasoning who reasons thus), 
there are proofs enough that he is at our right hand, 
though we do not see him ; that he works at our left 
hand, though we can not behold him. Instead of 
asking, with a sneer of doubt, "Where is he?" or 
carelessly tliiuking thus, " Shall God see V a much 
more rational method is with awe ^nd reverence to 
say, " Whither shall I flee from thy presence ? thou 
hast beset me behind and before, and laid thy hand 
upon me." C. uld any supposition take place even 



58 FOSTER^S THOUGHTS. 

of his momentary absence — that he was far oflf, or ou 
a journey, or asleep, and must needs be awakened — it 
miy;Lit be alleged to sanction the careless, provided 
they were aware of his absence, or knew the time of 
his drowsiness or distance ; bul, an omnipresent Al- 
mighty ought to fill us with seriousness, and the un-. 
certuinty of his operations, when, how, and where 
he will work, should fill us with deep, lasting, and con- 
stant awe. He exists : the thought makes a temple 
in every place I may be in ; to realize it, is to begin 
actual worship ; whatever I may be about, to indulge 
it is to make all other existence fade away. Amid 
the roar of mirth I hear only his voice ; in the glitter 
of dissipation I see only his brightness ; in the midst 
of business I. can do nothing but pray. He is pres- 
ent I what may he not see ? The actions of my hands 
he beholds I the voice of my words he hears 1 the 
thoughts of my heart he discerns ! Could 1 see him, 
I might on this side guard against his penetrating 
eye, or on the other side act something in secret, sate 
from his inspection ; but present, without my being 
able to discern him, I ought to be watchful every 
way ; the slightest error may fill us with awful ap- 
prehensions. Even now, says conscience, he may 
be preparing his vengeance, whetting his glittering 
sword, or drawing to a head the arrows of destruc- 
tion. Could my eye see his movements, I might be 
upon my guard ; might flee to some shelter, or shrink 
away from the blow ; but, a foe so near, and yet so 
indiscernible, may well alarm me, lest the act of ini- 
quity meet with an immediate reward ; the blasphe- 
mous prayer for damnation receive too ready an an- 
swer from his hot thunderbolt ! He is-a Spirit: what 
can he not do ? Vast are his powers, quick his dis- 
cernments, invisible his operations 1 iS'o sword can 
reach him, no shield of brass can protect against him, 
no placid countenance deceive him, no hypocritical 
supplications impose upon him. He is in my inmost 



BEING AND ATTRIBUTES OP GOD. 69 

thoughts — in every volition ; he supports the nego- 
tiatiog principle while it determines on its rebellions, 
or plans some mode by which to elude his all-pene- 
trating perception. Yain is every attempt at evasion 
or resistance. " God is a Spirit ;" is present every 
moment, surrounds every object, watches my steps 
and waits upon me, though I can not discern his form, 
his measure, his power, or direct his movements. I 
see him before my face in the bright walks of nature, 
but I can not discern his form. The rich landscape 
shows him good, wise, and bounteous : but how boun- 
teous, good, or wise, who, from the richest landscape, 
can be able to guess ? The brilliant sun gives a 
glimpse of his brightness ; the vast starry concave 
shows his immensity ; but how bright, how immense, 
it were impossible to say. Hark ! he speaks in that 
bursting thunder, or he moves in that crushing earth- 
quake, he shines in that blazing comet. So much I 
can easily discern, but God is still far beyond my 
comprehension. I see nothing but the hidings of his 
power ; himself is still unknown. 

He guides the affairs of providence. I see him 
before my face, but I can not behold his form. Who 
but he could have raised Pharaoh — the Nebuchadnez- 
zar of ancient or modern times ? Who but he could 
have rooted up a firmly-fixed throne, and poised a 
mighty nation upon the slender point of a stripling's 
energies ? I have seen him pass before me in my 
own concerns, leading me in a path I did not know, 
stopping me when on the verge of some destruction, 
filling my exhausted stores, and soothing my wearied 
mind to sweet serenity. I could not but say, " This 
is the Lord's doing, it is marvellous in my eyes ;" but 
I can not discern the form ; I know not what he will 
next do, nor dure I walk with presumptuous steps, 
or repose with self-complacent gratulation, and say, 
•' My mountain stands strong, 1 shall never be moved.'' 



60 Foster's thoughts. 

He hides his face for a moment, and I am troubled ; 
he withdraws his hand, and I die. 

I see a spirit passing before me, I hear his voice in 
the secret recesses ; I find that there is a God, that he 
is near, that he stands full in view, with appalling in- 
distinctness, so that I tremble, and the hairs of my 
flesh stand up : yet I can not discern the form. I know 
not what afifrights, stops impresses, crushes me. Com- 
pany I hate, for it neither dispels my sensations, nor 
harmonizes with them. Solitude I dread ; for the in- 
visible presence is there seen, and the unknown God 
is there felt in all his terrifying influence. To deny 
that some one is acting upon me, must be to deny 
that I see, feel, am anxious. Could I tell what, or 
who, I might call the wisdom of man to my assist- 
ance ; but it is the unknowable, yet well known ; the 
indiscernible, yet surely seen ; the incomprehensible, 
intangible, yet fully understood and ever-present God, 
that supports my trembling frame, and meets the 
warmest wishes of my too-daring mind ; the resolute 
determinations, inefficacious exertions, and the stub- 
born submission of an unwilling soul. Ah ! let this 
present Invisible encircle me with his mercy, defend 
me with his power, fill me with his fear, and save me 
by his almighty grace. Then, though I discern not 
his form, I shall be conscious of his presence, and 
the delightful consciousness shall fill me with rever- 
ence indeed, but not make my flesh to tremble. He 
shall sooth my sorrows, inspire my hopes, give me 
confidence in danger, and supplies in every necessity. 
The consciousness of his nearness, approbation, and 
mercy, shall enable me to endure like Moses, as see- 
ing Him who is invisible. 

6. Attempt to escape *the Divine presence vain and 
presumptuous. — When we withdraw from human in- 
tercourse into solitude, we are more peculiarly com- 
mitted in the presence of the Divinity ; yet some men 
retire into solitude to devise or perpetrate crimes 



BEING AND ATTRIBUTES OP GOD. 61 

This is like a man going to meet and brave a lion in 
his own gloomy desert, in the very precincts of his 
dread abode. 

7. Grandeur and glory of God reflected from his 
works. — What is it, we would ask, that comes upon 
us in those beams — in the beams of those luminaries 
which are beheld by the naked eye, next of those 
countless myriads beheld by the assisted eye, and 
then of those infinite legions which can never be re- 
vealed to the earth, but are seen by an elevated im- 
agination, and will perhaps burst with sudden and 
awful effulgence on the departed spirit? What is 
it, but the pure unmingled reflection of Him who 
can not be beheld in himself, who, present to all 
things, is yet in the darkness of infinite and eternal 
mystery, subsisting in an essence unparticipated, un- 
approached by gradation of other beings, impalpable 
to all speculation, refined beyond angeUc perception, 
foreign from all analogy — but who condescends to 
become visible in the effects of his nature, in the lus- 
tre of his works 1 

8. The universe a type, — a symbol of the greatness 
and glory of the Supreme. — The universe, with all 
its splendors and magnitudes, ascertained, conjectur- 
ed, or possible, may be regarded — not as a vehicle, 
not as an inhabited form, or a comprehending sphere, 
of the Sovereign Spirit, but as a type, which signi- 
fies, though by a faint, inadequate correspondence 
after all, that as great as the universe is in the ma- 
terial attributes of extension and splendor, so great 
is the Divine Being in the infinitely transcendent na- 
ture of spiritual existence. 

9. Attributes of God revealed through the diversity 
and immensity of his works. — We are placed amidst 
the amazing scenes of his works extending on all 
sides, from the point where we stand to far beyond 
anything we can distinctly conceive of infinity ; in a 
diversity which not eternal duration will suffice for 

6 



62 Foster's thoughts. 

any creature to take account of all ; having within 
one day, one hour, one instant, operations, changes, 
appearances, to which the greatest angel's calculating 
faculty would be nothing; combining design — order 
— beauty — sublimity — utility. Such is the scene 
to be contemplated. But now while our attention 
wanders over it, or fixes on parts of it, do we regard 
it but as if it were something existing by itself? 
Can we glance over the earth, and into the wilder- 
ness of worlds in infinite space without being im- 
pressed with the solemn thought, that all this is but 
the sign and proof of something infinitely more glori- 
ous than itsein Are we rtot reminded — this is a pro- 
duction of his Almighty power; — that is an adjust- 
ment of his all-comprehending intelligence and fore- 
sight; — there is a glimmer, a ray of his beauty, his 
glory; — there an* emanation of his benignity; — and 
there some fiery trace of his justice; — but for him 
all this never would have been ; — and if for a mo- 
ment his pervading energy were, by his will, restrain- 
ed or suspended, — what would it all be then ? 

That there should be men, who can survey the crea- 
tion with a scientific enlargement of intelligence, and 
then say " there is no God," is one of the most hideous 
phenomena in the world. 

10. Particularity of Divine knowledge. — Think 
what a compass of vision, and how much more he 
sees than we do, in any one act or incident on which 
our utmost attention may be fixed. To us there is 
an unknown part in every action. Our attention 
leaves one acting mortal to fix on another. He con- 
tinues to observe every one and all. Think again 
while we are judging, He is judging! There is at 
this instant a perfected estimate in an unseen mind 
of this that 1 am thinking how to estimate ! — If that 
judgment could lighten on me and on its subject ! 

11. God overrules all events. — Sometimes in par- 
ticular parts and instances we can see how human 



BEING AND ATTRIBUTES OP GOD. 63 

actions in their confused mass or series, nave been 
comj)elled into a process which results in what hu- 
man wisdom never could have predicted, and what 
an immensity of them is God compelling at this very- 
hour ! In our conscious feebleness of intelligence, 
it is stiiking to look at actions, and wonder what pur- 
pose of his he can make those conduce to — and 
those. Look at the vast world of them ; see what 
kind they are ; and then think what He must be 
that can control them all to his supreme purpose ! 
Yet there are some parts of the view in which the 
proceeding of Divine Providence is conspicuous and 
intelligible. We see how sin is made its own plague, 
even in this life ; and how by what law — "holiness 
to the Lord" contains the living principle of happi- 
ness. And also, how some of the transactions and 
events in the world are tending to certain grand re- 
sults which God has avowed to be in his purpose. 

12. A belief in the Divine existence and sovereignty 
the only reliable foundation of virtue. — That solemn 
reverence for the Deity, and expectation of a future 
judgment, without which it is a pure matter of fact 
that there is no such thing on earth as an invincible 
and universal virtue. 

13. Deities of paganism and false religion, not above 
crimination themselves, can not, in their worship and 
moral systems, condemn sin in their votaries.— -\ixk\QYQ 
were ten thousand deities, there should not be one 
that should be authorized by perfect rectitude in it- 
self to punish Am; not one by which it should be 
possible for him to be rebuked without having a right 
to recriminate. 

14. The atheist. — To the atheist there is nothing 
in place of that which is the supremacy of all exist- 
ence and glory. The Divine Spirit, and all spirits, 
being abolished, he is left amid masses and systems 
of matter, without a first cause, ruled by chance, or 
by a blind mechanical impulse of what he calls fate; 



64 poster's thoughts. 

and as a little composition of atoms, he is himself to 
take his chance, for a few moments of conscious be- 
ing, and then to be no more for ever. And yet in 
this infinite prostration of all things, he feels an ela- 
tion of intellectual pride. 

15. Peculiar illumination of the atheist questioned. 
— But give your own description of what you have 
met with in a world which has been deemed to pre- 
sent in every part the indications of a Deity. Tell 
of the mysterious voices which have spoken to you 
from the deeps of the creation, falsifying the expres- 
sions marked on its face. Tell of the new ideas, 
which, like meteors passing over the solitary wan- 
derer, gave him the first glimpse of truth while be- 
nighted in the common belief of the Divine exist- 
ence. Describe the whole train of causes that have 
operated to create and consolidate that state of mind 
which you carry forward to the great experiment of 
futurity, under a different kind of hazard from all 
other classes of men. 

16. Ignorant and arrogant pretensians of the athe- 
ist. — The wonder then turas on the great process, by 
which a man could grow to the immense intelligence 
that can know that there is no God. What ages and 
,what lights are requisite for this attainment ! This 
intelligence involves the very attributes of Divinity, 
while a God is denied. For unless this man is omni- 
present, unless he is at this moment in every place 
in the universe, he can not know but there may be 
in some place manifestations of a Deity by which 
even he would be overpowered. If he does not know 
absolutely every agent in the universe, the one that 
he does not know may be God. If he is not himself 
the chief agent in the universe, and does not know 
what is so, that which is so may be God. If he is 
not in absolute possession of all the propositions that 
constitute universal truth, the one which he wants 
may be, that there is a God. If he can not with cer- 



BEING AND ATTRIBUTES OF GOD. 65 

tainty assign the cause of all that he perceives to ex- 
ist, that cause may be a God. If he does not know 
everything that has been done in the immeasurable 
' ages that are past, some things 'may have been done 
by a God. Thus, unless he knows all things — that 
is, precludes another Deity by being one himself — 
he can not know that the Being whose ej^stence he 
rejects, does not exist. But he must know that he 
does not exist, else he desei'ves equal contempt and 
compassion for the temerity with which he firmly 
avows his rejection and acts accordingly. Surely 
the creature that thus lifts his voice, and defies all 
invisible power within the possibilities of infinity, 
challenging whatever unknown being may hear him, 
and may appropriate that title of Almighty which is 
pronounced in scorn, to evince his existence, if he 
will, by his vengeance, was not as yesterday a little 
child that would tremble and cry at the approach of 
a diminutive reptile. 

17. Certain philosophers impatient of the ideas of 
a Divine Providence and his revelation to the world. 
— No builders of houses or cities were ever more 
atten-tive to guard against the access of inundation 
or fire. If He should but touch their prospec- 
tive theories of improvement, th^ would renounce 
them, as defiled and fit only for vulgar fanaticism. 
Their system of providence would be profaned by 
the intrusion of the Almighty. Man is to effect 
an apotheosis for himself, by the hopeful process of 
exhausting his corruptions. And should it take all 
but an endless series of ages, vices, and woes, to 
reach this glorious attainment, patience may sustain 
itself the while by the thought that, when it is real- 
ized, it will be burdened with no duty of religious 
gratitude. No time is too long to wait, no cost too 
deep to incur, for the triumph of proving that we 
have no need of that one attribute of a Divinity — 
which creates the grand interest in acknowledging 



66 Foster's thoughts. 

such a Being — the benevolence that would make us 
happy. But even if this triumph should be found 
unattainable, the independence of spirit which has 
labored for it must not at last sink into piety. This 
afflicted world, '* this poor terrestrial citadel of man," 
is to lock its gates, and keep its miseries, rather than 
admit the degradation of receiving help from God. 



EVIDENCES OP CHRISTIANITY. 67 



CHAPTER II. 

THOUGHTS ON THE EVIDENCES OF RELIGION THE 

SOURCES, PREJUDICES, AND TENDENCIES, OP SKEP- 
TICISM, ETC. 

1 . Unsettled faith as unreasonahle as presumptuous. 
— If they [undecided individuals] really do not care 
enough about this transcendent subject, to desire, 
above all things on earth, a just and final determina- 
tion of their judgments upon it, we can only deplore 
that anything so precious as a mind should have been 
committed to such cruelly thoughtless possessors. We 
can only repeat some useless expressions of amaze- 
ment to see a rational being holding itself in such con- 
tempt ; and predict a period when itself will be still 
much more amazed at the lemembrance how many 
thousand insignificant questions found their turn to 
be considered and decided, while the one involving 
infinite consequences was reserved to be determined 
by the event — too late, therefore, to have an auspi- 
cious influence on that event, which was the grand 
object, for the sake of whxh it ought to have been 
deteiTnined before all other questions. It is impos- 
sible to hear, with the slightest degree of respect of 
patience, the expressions of doubt or anxiety about 
the truth of Christianity, from any one who can delay 
a week to obtain this celebrated View of its Eviden- 
ces, or fail to read it through again and again. It is 
of no use to say what would be our opinion of the 
moral and intellectual state of his mind, if, after this, 
tie remgiined still undecided. We regard Dr. Paley's 



68 poster's thoughts. 

writings on the "Evidences of Christianity" as of so 
signally decisive a character, that we would be con- 
tent to let them stand as the essence and the close of 
the great argument on the part of its believers ; and 
should feel no despondency or chagrin if we could 
be prophetically certified that such an efficient Chris- 
tian reasoner would never henceforward arise. We 
should consider the grand fortress of proof, as now 
raised and finished, the intellectual capitol of that em- 
pire which is destined to leave the widest boundaries 
attained by the Roman veryiar behind. 

2. Christianity everything or nothing. — The book 
which avows itself, by a thousand solemn and explicit 
declarations, to be a communication from Heaven, is 
either what it thus declares itself to be, or a most 
monstrous imposture. If these philosophers hold it 
to be an imposture, and therefore an execrable de- 
ception put on the sense of mankind, how contempti- 
ble it is to see them practising their civil cringe, and 
uttering phrases of deference ! If they admit it to 
be what it avows itself, how detestable is their con- 
duct in advancing positions and theories, with a cool 
disregard of the highest authority, confronting and. 
conti'adicting them all the while ! And if the ques- 
tion is deemed to be yet in suspense, how ridiculous 
it is to be thus building up speculations and systems, 
pending a cause which may require their demolition 
the instant it is decided ! Who would not despise or 
pity a man eagerly raising a fine house on a piece of 
ground at the very time in r'oubtful litigation ] Who 
would not have laughed at a man who should have 
published a book of geography, with minute descrip- 
tions and costly maps, of distant regions and islands, 
at the very time that Magellan or Cook was absent 
on purpose to determine their position, or even verify 
their existence % 

3. Christianity the supreme pursuit. — Assembling 
into one view all things in the world that are impor- 



EVIDENCES OP CHRISTIANITY. 69 

tant, and should be dedr to mankind, I distinguish the 
Christian cause as the celestial soul of the assemblage, 
evincing the same pre-eminence, and challenging the 
same emphatic passion, which in any other case mind 
does beyond the inferior elements ; and I have no 
wish of equal energy with that which aspires to the 
most intimate possible connexion with Him who is 
the life of this cause, and the life of the world. 

4. Branches of the Christian argument. — A train 
of miracles, attested in the most authoritative manner 
that is within the competence of history ; the evidence 
afforded by prophecies fulfilled, that the author of 
Revelation is the being who sees into futurity ; the 
manifestation, in revealed religion, of a superhuman 
knowledge of the nature and condition of man ; the 
adaptation of the remedial system to that condition; 
the incomparable excellence of the Christian morali- 
ty ; the analogy between the works of God and what 
claims to be the Word of God ; and the interposi- 
tions with respect to the cause and the adherents of 
i-eligion in the course of the Divine government on 
the earth : this grand coincidence of verifications has 
not left the faith of the disciple of Christianity at the 
mercy of optics and geometry. He may calmly tell 
science to mind its own affairs, if it should presume, 
with pretensions to authority, to interfere with his 
religion. 

5. Miracles not increSAhle. — We repel that philos- 
ophizing spirit, as it would be called, which insists on 
resolving all the extraordinary phenomena, recorded 
in the Old Testament, into the effect of merely natu- 
ral causes ; just as if the order of nature had been 
constituted by some other and greater Being, and 
intrusted to the Almighty to be administered, under 
an obligation never to suspend, for a moment, the 
fixed laws ! Just as if it could not consist with infi- 
nite Wisdom to order a system so that in particular 
cases a greater advantage should arise from a mo- 



70 Foster's thouohts. 

mentaiy deviation than from an invariable proce- 
dure ! 

6. Argument from miracles. — Surely it is fair to 
believe that those who received from Heaven super- 
human power, received likewise superhuman wisdom. 
Having rung the great hell of the universe, the sermon 
to follow must be extraordinary. 

7. Analogy of religion to the course of Nature. — 
It is an evident and remarkable fact, that there is 
a certain principle of correspondence to religion 
throughout the economy of the world. Things bear- 
ing an apparent analogy to its truths, sometimes more 
prominently, sometimes more abstrusely, present 
themselves on all sides to a thoughtful mind. He 
that made all things for himself appears to have 
willed that they should be a great system of em- 
blems, reflecting or shadowing that system of prin- 
ciples which is the true theory concerning him, and 
our relations to him. So that religion, standing up 
in grand parallel to an infinity of things, receives 
their testimony and homage, and speaks with a voice 
which is echoed by the creation. 

8. Proud assumption of infidelity . — Infidels assume, 
in subjects which from their magnitude necessarily 
stretch away into mystery, to pronounce whatever can 
or can not be. They seem to say, " We stand on an 
eminence sufficient to command a vision of all things : 
therefore whatever we can not see, does noUexist." 

9. Partial knowledge of Divine economy should re- 
press reasoning pride. — We are, as to the grand sys- 
tem and series of God's government, like a man, who, 
confined in a dark room, should obsei-ve, through a 
chink of the wall, some large animal passing by : he 
sees but an extremely narrow strip of the object at 
once as it moves by, and is utterly unable to form an 
idea of the size, proportions, or shape of it. 

10. Process of the physical creation. — Darkness 
brooding, dim dreary light, herbs, sun, &c. Analogy. 



EVIDENCES OP CHRISTIANITY. 71 

Consider the whole course of time as the world's 
moral creation. At what period and stage in the 
.analogy has it now ariived % — not more than the first 

11. Christianity heset with no more difficulties than 
other subjects. — The whole hemisphere of contempla- 
tion appears inexpressibly strange and mysterious. 
It is cloud pursuing cloud, forest after forest, and 
Alps upon Alps ! It is in vain to declaim against 
skepticism. I feel with an emphasis of conviction, 
and wonder, and regret, that almost all things are 
enveloped in shade ; that many things are covered 
with thickest darkness; that the number of things to 
which certainty belongs is small. ... I hope to enjoy 
" the sunshine of the other world." One of the very 
few things that appear to me not doubtful,is the truth 
of Christianity in general. 

12. Objections to Christianity from the discoveries 
of the telescope answered by those of the microscope. — 
Those who justify their infidelity by the discoveries 
of the telescope, seem to have chosen to forget that 
there is another instrument which has made hardly 
less wonderful discoveries in an opposite direction — 
discoveries authorizing an inference completely de- 
structive of that made from the astronomical magni- 
tudes. And it is very gratifying to see the lofty as- 
sumptions drawn, in a spirit as unphilosophical as 
irreligious, from remote systems and the immensity 
of the universe, and advanced against Christianity 
with an air of irresistible authority — to see them en- 
countered and. annihilated by evidences sent forth 
from tribes and races of beings, of which innumera- 
ble millions might pass under the intensest look of 
the human eye imperceptible as empty space. It is 
immediately obvious that an incomparably more glo- 
rious idea is entertained of the Divinity, by conceiv- 
ing of him as possessing a wisdom and a power com- 
petent, without an effort, to maintain an infinitely- 



72 poster's thoughts. 

perfect inspection and regulation, distinctly, of all 
subsistences, even the minutest, comprehended in the 
universe, than by conceiving of him as only main- 
taining some kind of general superintendence of the 
system — only general, because a perfect attention to 
all existences individually would be too much, it ie 
deemed, for the capacity of even the Supreme Mind. 
And for the very reason that this would be the most 
glorious idea of him, it must be the true one. To 
say that we can, in the abstract, conceive of a mag- 
nitude of intelligence and power which would con- 
stitute the Deity, if he possessed it, a more glorious 
and adorable Being than he actually is, could be noth- 
ing less than flagrant impiety. 

13. Hopeless attempt of the deist to solve the great 
problem of the human condition. — The inquirer must 
be curious to see in what manner he jdisposes of the 
stupendous depravity, which through all ages has 
covered the earth with crimes and miseries; and how 
he has illustrated the grand and happy effects result- 
ing from the general and permanent predominance 
of the selfish over the benevolent affections, from the 
imbecility of reason and conscience as opposed to 
appetite, from the infinitely greater facility of form- 
ing and retaining bad habits than good ones, from 
the incalculable number of false opinions embraced 
instead of the true, and from the depiivation which 
is always found to steal very soon into the best insti- 
tutions. He must surely be no less solicitous to see 
the dignity and certainty of the moral sense verified 
in the face of the well-known fact that there is no 
crime which has not, in the absence of revelation, 
been committed, in one part of the world or another, 
without the smallest consciousness of guilt. 

14. Prejudices of unbelievers. — They might perhaps 
be severely mortified to find what vulgar motives, 
while they were despising vulgar men, have ruled 
their intellectual career. Pride, which idolizes self, 



EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 73 

which revolts at everything that comes in the foim 
of dictates, and exults to find that there is a possibil- 
ity of controverting v^hether any dictates come from 
a greater than mortal source ; repugnance as well to 
the severe and sublime morality of the laws reputed 
of divine appointment, as to the feeling of accounta- 
bleness to an all-powerful Authority, that will not 
leave moral laws to be enforced solely by their own 
sanctions ; contempt of inferior men ; the attraction 
of a few brilliant examples ; the fashion of a class ; the 
ambition of showing what ability can do, and what 
boldness can dare: if such things as these, after all, 
have excited and directed the efforts of a philosophic 
spirit, the unbelieving philosopher must be content to 
acknowledge plenty of companions and rivals among 
little men, who are quite as capable of being actuated 
by these elevated principles as himself. 

15, Seeking for secondary causes to escape the rec- 
ognition of the sovereign agency of Divine Provi- 
dence. — As if a man were prying about for this and 
the other cause of damage, to account for the aspect 
of a region which has recently been devastated by 
mundations or earthquakes. 

16. Many betrayed into infidelity hy a Minded ad- 
miration of the genius of brilliant hut unprincipled au- 
thors. — There is scarcely any such thing in the world 
as simple conviction. It would be amusing to observe 
how reason had, in one instance, been overruled into 
acquiescence by the admiration of a celebrated name, 
or in another, into opposition by the envy of it; how 
most opportunely reason discovered the truth just at 
the time that interest could be essentially served by 
avowing it ; how easily the impartial examiner could 
be induced to adopt some part of another man's opin- 
ions, after that other had zealously approved some 
favorite, especially if unpopular, part of his ; as the 
Pharisees almost became partial even to Christ, at 
the moment that he defended one of their doctrines 

7 



74 poster's thoughts. 

against the Sadducees. It would be curious to see 
how a respectful estimate of a man's character and 
talents might be changed, in consequence of some 
personal inattention experienced from him, into de- 
preciating invective against him or his intellectual 
performances, and yet the railer, though actuated 
solely by petty revenge, account himself all the while 
the model of equity and sound judgment. Like the 
mariners in a story which I remember to have read, 
who followed the direction of their compass, infalli- 
bly right, as they could have no doubt, till they ar- 
rived at an enemy's port, where they were seized and 
made slaves. It happened that the wicked captain, 
in order to beti'ay the ship, had concealed a large 
loadstone at a little distance on one side of the nee- 
dle. 

17. Writings of infidelitij. — You would examine 
those pages with the expectation probably of some- 
thing more powerful than subtlety attenuated into in- 
anity, and, in that invisible and impalpable state, mis- 
taken by the writer, and willingly admitted by the 
perverted reader, for profundity of reasoning; than 
attempts to destroy the certainty, or preclude the ap- 
plication, of some of those great familiar principles 
which must be taken as the basis of human reason- 
ing, or it can have no basis ; than suppositions which 
attribute the order of the universe to such causes as 
it would be felt ridiculous to pronounce adequate to 
produce the most trifling piece of mechanism ; than 
mystical jargon which, under the name of Nature, al- 
ternately exalts almost into the properties of a god, 
and reduces far below those of a man, some imagi- 
nary and undefinable agent or agency, which per- 
forms the most amazing works without power, and 
displays the most amazing wisdom without mtelli- 
gence; than a zealous preference of that part of 
every great dilemma which merely confounds and 
sinks the mind to that which elevates while it over- 



EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 75 

whelms it ; than a constant endeavor to degrade as 
far as possible everything that is sublime in our spec- 
ulations and feelings, or than monstrous parallels be- 
tween religion and mythology. 

18. False systems often apologized for, for the pur- 
pose of disparaging all religion. — There had not 
been in this country so free a display of every infidel 
propensity as to render it a matter of familiar obser-" 
vation, that men who hate the intrusion of a Divine 
juiisdiction are much inclined to regard with favor 
a mode of pretended religion, which they can make 
light of as devoid of all real authority. They are so 
inclined because, through its generic quality (of re- 
ligion), it somewhat assists them to make light also 
of a more formidable thing of that quality and name. 
It comes, probably, with a great show of claims — an- 
tiquity, pretended miracles, and an immense number 
of believers : it may nevertheless be disbelieved with 
most certain impunity. Under the encouragement 
of this disbelief with impunity, the mind ventures to 
look toward other religions, and at last toward the 
Christian. That also has its antiquity, its recorded 
miracles, and its multitude of believers. Though 
there may not, perhaps, be impious assurance enough 
to assume formally the equality of the pretensions in 
the two cases, there is a successful eagerness to es- 
cape from the evidence that the apparent similarity 
is superficial, and the real difference infinite ; and the 
irreligious spirit springs rapidly and gladly, in its dis- 
belief, from the one, as a stepping-place to the other. 
But that which affords such an important convenience 
for surmounting the awe of the true religion, will nat- 
urally be a great favorite, even at the very moment 
it is seen to be contemptible, and indeed in a sense 
in consequence of its being so, complacency mingles 
with the very contempt for that from which contempt 
may rebound on Christianity. 

19. Origin of the elevated ideas in the pagan the- 



76 Foster's thoughts. 

ology. — Adverting to what may be called the theolo- 
gy of the system [paganism], no one denies that a 
number of very abstracted and elevated ideas rela- 
ting to a Deity are found in the ancient books, wheth- 
er these ideas had descended traditionally from the 
primary communication of divine truth to our race, 
or had diversfed so far toward the east from the rev- 
elation imparted through Moses to the Jews. . . A fa- 
ded trace of primeval truth remains in their theology, 
in a certain inane notion of a Supreme Spirit, distin- 
guished from the infinity of personifications on which 
the religious sentiment is wasted, and from those few 
transcendent demon figures which proudly stand out 
from the insig-nificance of the swarm. But it is un- 
necessary to say that this notion, a thm remote ab- 
straction, as a mere nehuJa in the Hindoo heaven, is 
quite inefficient for shedding one salutary ray on the 
spirits infatuated with all that is trivial and gross in 
superstition. 

20. Paganism distinguished from Divine revela- 
tion. — The system, if so it is to be called, appears, to 
a cursory inquirer at least, an utter chaos, without 
top, or bottom, or centre, or any dimension or pro- 
portion, belonging to either matter or mind, and con- 
sisting of materials which certainly deserve no better 
order. It gives one the idea of immensity filled with 
what is not of the value of an atom. It is the most 
remarkable exemplification of the possibility of ma- 
king the grandest ideas contemptible by conjunction ; 
for that of infinity is here combined with the very ab- 
stract of worthlessness. While it commands the faith 
of its subjects, completes its power over them by its 
accordance to their pride, malevolence, sensuality, 
and deceitfulness ; to that natui*al concomitant of 
pride, the baseness which is ready to prostrate itself 
in homage to anything that shall put itself in place 
of God ; and to that interest which criminals feel to 
transfer their own accountableness upon the powers 



EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY 77 

above them. But then think what a condition for 
human creatures ! they believe in a reUgion which 
invigorates, by coincidence and sanction, those prin- 
ciples in their nature wliich the true religion is in- 
tended to destroy; and in return, those principles 
thus strengthened contribute to confirm their faith in 
the religion. The mischief inflicted becomes the 
most effectual persuasion to confidence in the in- 
flicter. 

21. Multiplicity of pagamviclcedness. — And so in- 
defatigable was its exercise, that almost all conceiv- 
able forms of immorality were brought to imagina- 
tion, most of them into experiment, and the greater 
number into prevailing practice, in those nations ; in- 
somuch that the sated monarch would have imposed 
as difficult a task on ingenuity in calling for the in- 
vention of a new vice as of a new pleasure. 

22. Pride revolted into itijidelity by the impartial 
philanthropy of Christianity. — Let that pride speak 
out ; it would be curious to hear it say that your men- 
tal refinement perhaps might have permitted you to 
take your ground on that eminence of the Christian 
faith where Milton and Pascal stood, «/" so many hum- 
bler beings did not disgrace it by occupying the de- 
clivity and the vale. 

23. Perverse blindness of those who see no vioral 
beauty and grandeur in Divine revelation. — Like an 
ignorant clown who, happening to look at the heav- 
ens, perceives nothing more awful in that wilderness 
of suns than in the row of lamps along the streets ! 
If you do read that book in the better state of feeling, 
I have no comprehension of the mechanism of your 
mind, if the first perception would not be that of a 
simple, venerable dignity, aud if the second would 
not be that of a certain abstract, undefinable magnifi- 
cence ; a perception of something which, behind this 
simphcity, expands into a greatness beyond the com- 
pass of your mind ; an impression like that with which 



78 FOSTER S THOUGHTS. 

a thoughtful man would have looked on the counte- 
nance of Newton, after he had published his discov- 
eries, feeling a kind of mystical absorption in the 
attempt to comprehend the magnitude of the soul re- 
siding within that form. 

24. The blighting inflvence of ivfidelity. — Reli- 
gion, believed and felt, is the amplitude of our moral 
nature. And how wretched an object therefore is a' 
mind, especially of thought, sensibility, and genius, 
condemned to that poverty and insulation which in- 
fidelity inflicts, by annihilating around it the medium 
of a sensible interest in the existence, the emotions, 
the activities, of a higher order of beings ! 

25. The gospel jirovixles for those overlooked by phi- 
losophy and false religion. — It is the beneficent dis- 
tinction of the gospel, that notwithstanding it is of a 
magnitude to interest and to surpass angelic investi- 
gation (and therefore assuredly to pour contempt on 
the pride of human intelligence that rejects it for its 
meanness), it is yet most expressly sent to the class 
which philosophers have always despised. And a 
good man feels it a cause of grateful joy, that a 
communication has come from Heaven, adapted to 
effect the happiness of multitudes, in spite of natural 
debility or neglected education. 

26. Christianity dissevered from its corruptions. 
— Such a man as I have supposed, understands what 
its tendency and dictates really are, so far at least 
that, in contemplating the bigotry, persecution, hy- 
pocrisy, and worldly ambition, which have stained, 
and continue to stain, the Christian history, his mind 
instantly dissevers, by a decisive glance of thought, 
all these evils, and the pretended Christians who are 
accountable for them, from the religion which is as 
distinct from them as the Spirit that pervades all 
things is pure from matter and from sin. In his 
view, these odious things and these wicked men' that 
have arrogated and defiled the Christian name, sink 



EVIDENCES OF liRISTIANITY. 79 

out of sight through a chasm, like Koran, Dathan, 
and Abiram, and leave the camp and the cause holy, 
though they leave the numbers small. 

27. Glory of religion ohscured hy imperfect mani- 
festation. — Contracted and obscured in its abode, the 
inhabitant will appear, as the sun through a misty 
sky, with but bttle of its magnificence, to a man who 
can be content to receive his impression of the intel- 
lectual character of the religion from the mode of its 
manifestation from the minds of its disciples ; and, in 
doing so, can indolently and perversely allow himself 
to regard the weakest mode of its displaying itself, 
as its truest image. In taking such a dwelling, the 
religion seems to imitate what was prophesied of its 
author, that, when he should be seen, there would be 
no beauty that he should be desired. This humilia- 
tion is inevitable; for unless miracles are wrought, to 
impart to the less intellectual disciples an enlarged 
power of thinking; the evangelic truth must accom- 
modate itself to the dimensions and unrefined habi* 
tudes of their minds. 

28. Christianity 'prejudiced hy the ignorant repre- 
sentatives of its friends. — As the gospel comprises an 
ample assemblage of intellectual views, and as the 
gi'eater number of Christians are inevitably disqualifi- 
ed to do justice to them, even in any degree, by the same 
causes which disqualify them to do justice to other in- 
tellectual subjects, it is not improbable, that the great- 
er number of expressions which he has heard in 
his whole life, have been utterly below the subject. 
Obviously this is a very serious circumstance ; for if 
he had heard as much spoken on any other intellec- 
tual subject, as, for instance, poetry, or astronomy, 
for which perhaps he has a passion, and if a similar 
proportion of what he had heard had been as much 
below the subject, he would probably have acquired 
but little partiality for either of those studies. And 
it is a very melancholy disposition against the human 



80 Foster's thoughts. 

heart, that the gospel needs fewer unfavorable asso- 
ciations to become repulsive in it, than any other im- 
portant subject. 

20. ChristianitTj distinguish ed from its corrup- 
tions. — In the view of an intelHgent and honest mind 
the religion of Christ stands as clear of all connexion 
with the corruption of men, and churches, and ages, 
as when it was first revealed. It retains its purity 
like Moses in Egypt, or Daniel in Babylon, or the 
Savior of the world himself, while he mingled with 
scribes and Pharisees, or republicans and sinners. 

30. The evangelical system appears without form 
or comeliness to ivorldlymen. — In admitting this por- 
tion of the system as a part of the truth, his feelings 
amount to the wish that a different theoiy had been 

true The dignity of religion, as a general and 

refined speculation, he may have long acknowledged ; 
but it appears to him as if it lost part of that dignity, 
in taking the specific form of the evangeUcal system ; 
just as if an ethereal being were reduced to combine 
his radiance and subtilty with an earthly nature. . . 
. . . The gospel appears to him like the image in 
Nebuchadnezzar's dream, refulgent indeed with a 
head of gold ; the sublime truths which are inde- 
pendent of every peculiar dispensation are luminous- 
ly exhibited ; but the doctrines which are added as 
descriptive of the peculiar circumstances of the 
Christian economy, appear less splendid, and as if 
descending toward the qualities of iron and clay. 

31. Inadequate and narrow vieios of some Chris- 
tians. — He may sometimes have heard the discourse 
of sincere Christians, whose religion involved no in- 
tellectual exercise, and, strictly speaking, no subject 
of intellect. Separately from their feelings, it had 
no definition, no topics, no distinct succession of views. 
And if he or some other p^i-son attempted to talk on 
some part of the religion itself as a thing definable 
and important, independently of the feelings of any 



EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 81 

individual, and as consisting in a vast congeries of 
ideas, relating to the divine government of the world, 
to the general nature of the economy disclosed by 
the Messiah, to the distinct doctrines in the theory 
of that economy, to moral principles, and to the great- 
ness of the future prospects of man, — they seemed 
to have no concern in that religion, and impatiently 
interrupted the subject with the observation, — that 
is n.ot expeiience. 

32. The gospel adapted, to all orders of mind. — 
By want of acuteness do you fail to distinguish be- 
tween the mode (a mere extrinsic and casual mode), 
and the substance 1 In the world of nature you see 
the same simple elements wrought into the plainest 
and most beautiful, into the most diminutive and the 
most majestic forms. So the same simple principles 
of Christian truth may constitute the basis of a very 
inferior, or a very noble, order of ideas. The prin- 
ciples themselves have an invariable quality ; but 
they were not imparted to man to be fixed in the 
mind as so many bare scientific propositions, each 
confined to one single mode of conception, without 
any collateral ideas, and to be always expressed in 
one unalterable form of words. They are placed 
there in order to spread out, if I might so express it, 
into a great multitude and diversity of ideas and feel- 
ings. These ideas and fe-elings, forming round the 
pure, simple principles, will correspond, and will 
make those principles seem to correspond, to the 
meaner or more dignified intellectual rank of mind. 
Why will you not perceive that the subject which 
takes so humble a style in its less intellectual believ- 
ers, unfolds greater proportions through a gradation 
of larger and still larger faculties, and with facility 
occupies the whole capacity of the amplest, in the 
same manner as the ocean fills a gulf as easily as a 
creek ] Through this series it retains an identity 
of its essential principles, and appears progressively 



82 Foster's thoughts. 

a nobler thing only by gaining a position for more 
nobly displayi'ag itself. Why will you not follow it 
through this gradation, till it reach the point where 
it is presented in a greatness of character, to cor- 
respond with the improved state of your mind 1 Nev- 
er fear lest the gospel should prove not sublime 
enough for the elevation of your thoughts. If you 
could attain an intellectual eminence from which you 
would look witli pity on the rank which you at pres- 
ent hold, you would still find the dignity of this sub- 
ject occupying your level, and rising above it. Do 
you doubt this 1 What then do you think of such 
spirits, for instance, as those of Milton and Pascal ] 
And by how many degrees of the intellectual scale 
shall yours surpass them, to authorize your feeling that 
to be little which they felt to be great ] They were 
often conscious of the magnificence of Christian truth 
fillinor, distending, and exceeding, their faculties, an(^ 
sometimes wished for greater powers to do it justice. 
In their noblest contemplations, they did not feel their 
minds elevating the subject, but the subject elevating 
their minds. 

33. Christianity the same amid the various and 
changing evils of the world. — It is most consolatory 
to reflect, that religion, like ah angel walking among 
the ranks of guilty men, still untainted and pure, re- 
tains, amid all these black and outrageous evils, 
the same benign and celestial spirit, and gives the 
same independent and perpetual pleasures. The 
happiness of the good seek« not the smile of guilty 
power, nor dreads its frown. Let a Christian philos- 
ophy, therefore, elevate all our speculations, calm our 
indignant feelings, and dignify all our conduct 

34. Two ways to atheism. — There is a broad easy 
way to atheism through thoughtless ignorance, as 
well as a narrow and difficult one through subtle 
speculation. 

35. Dreary eminence of injiddity. — I am describing 



EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 83 

the progress of one of the humble order of aliens from 
all religion, and not that by which the great philo- 
sophic leaders have ascended the dreary eminence, 
where they look with so much complacency up to a 
vacant heaven, and down to the gulf of annihilation. 

36. Consumviation of allowed skepticism. — The 
progress in guilt, which generally follows a rejection 
of revelation makes it still more and more desirable 
that no object should remain to be feared. It was 
not strange therefore if this man read with avidity or 
even strange if he read with something which his 
wishes completed into conviction, a few of the writers, 
who have attempted the last achievement of presump- 
tuous man. After inspecting ^hese pages awhile, 
he raised his eyes, and the great Spirit was gone. 
Mighty transformation of all things ! The luminaries 
of heaven no longer shone with his splendor; the 
adorned earth no longer looked fair with his beauty ; 
the darkness of night had ceased to be rendered solemn 
by his majesty ; life and thought were not an efTect 
of his all-pervading energy ; it was not his providence 
that supported an infinite charge of dependent be- 
ings ; his empire of justice no longer spread over the 
universe ; nor had even that universe sprung from 
his all-creating power. 

37. The boasted triumph of infidelity in the death 
of Hume. — To be a conscious agent, exerting a rich 
combination of wonderful faculties to feel, an infinite 
variety of pleasurable sensations and emotions, to 
contemplate all nature, to extend an intellectual pres- 
ence to indefinite ages of the past and future, to pos- 
sess a perennial spring of ideas, to run infinite lengths 
of inquiry, with the delight of exercise and fleetness, 
even when not with the satisfaction of full attain- 
ment, and to be a lord over inanimate matter, com- 
pelling it to an action and a use altogether foreign to 
its nature, to be all this, is a state so stupendously 
different from that of being simply a piec^ of clay, 



84 FOSTER S THOUGHTS. 

that to be quite easy, and complacent in the immedi- 
ate prospect of passing from the one to the other is 
a total inversion of all reasonable estimates of things ; 
it is a renunciation, we do not say of sound philoso- 
phy, but of common sense. The certainty that the 
loss will not be felt after it has taken place, will but 
little sooth a man of unperverted mind in consider- 
ing what it is that he is going to lose. 

The jocularity of the philosopher was contrary to 
good taste. Supposing that the expected loss were 
not, according to a grand law of nature, a cause for 
melancholy and desperation, but that the contentment 
were rational ; yet the approaching transformation 
was at all events to be regarded as a very grave and 
very strange event, and therefore jocularity was to- 
tally incongruous with the anticipation of such an 
event : a grave and solemn feeling was the only one 
that could be in unison with the contemplation of such 
a change. There was, in this instance, the same in- 
congruity which we should impute to a writer who 

should mingle buffoonery in a solemn crisis of the 

/» 1 • 
drama, or with the most momentous event of a his- 
tory. To be in harmony with his situation, in his 
own view of that situation, the expressions of the dy- 
ing philosopher were required to be dignified ; and 
if they were in any degree vivacious, the vivacity 
ought to have been rendered graceful by being ac- 
companied with the noblest effort of the intellect of 
which the efforts were going to cease for ever. The 
low vivacity of which we have been reading, seems 
but like the quickening corruption of a mind whose 
faculty of perception is putrefying and dissolving 
even before the body. It is true that good men, of a 
high order, have been known to utter pleasantries in 
their last hours. But these have been pleasantries 
of a fine ethereal quality, the scintillations of anima- 
ted hope, the high pulsations of mental health, the in- 
voluntary movements of. a spirit feeling itself free 



EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 85 

even in the gi'asp of death, the natural springs and 
boundings of faculties on the point of obtaining a still 
much greater and a boundless liberty. These had 
no resemblance to the low and labored jokes of our 
philosopher ; jokes so labored as to give strong cause 
for suspicion, after all, that they were of the same 
nature, and for the same purpose, as the expedient 
of a boy on passing through some gloomy place in 
the night, who whistles to lessen his fear, or to per- 
suade his companion that he does not feel it. 

Such a manner of meeting death was inconsistent 
with the skepticism, to which Hume was always found 
to avow his adherence. For that skepticism neces- 
sarily acknowledged a possibility and a chance that 
the religion which he had scorned, might, notwith- 
standing, be found true, and might, in the moment 
after his death, glare upon him with all its terrors. 
But how dreadful to a reflecting mind would have 
been the smallest chance of meeting such a vision ! 
Yet the philosopher could be cracking his heavy 
jokes, and Dr. Smith could be much diverted at the 
sport. 

To a man who solemnly believes the truth of reve- 
lation, and therefore the threatenings of divine ven- 
geance against the despisers of it, this scene will 
present as mournful a spectacle as perh'aps the sun 
ever shone upon. 
8 



SiQ poster's thoughts. 



CHAPTER III. 

THOUGHTS ON THE LAW OF GOD ITS HOLINESS, COM- 
PREHENSIVENESS, APPLICATIONS, AND EVASIONS. 

1. God a lawgiver. — The first view of the relation 
between God and all other beings, is that of his be- 
ing their Creator. The next view of the relation is 
that which manifests him as a Lawgiver. By the 
very nature of the case, this must be an essential part 
of the relation. No right so absolute, to give -lawsj 
can be conceived, as that of the Creator; for he is 
necessarily the Supreme Being. He has a perfect 
and exclusive property in what he has created. All 
created being is entirely dependent on him for being 
and well-being. He alone can have a perfect under- 
standing of what is the right state, and the right pro- 
cedure, of created beings ; they can not understand 
themselves, and therefore could not, if they would, 
devise competent laws. He alone has the power to 
enforce a system of laws over the whole creatior. 
The mention of the "whole creation" may suggest 
one application of the terms — the amazing extent of 
the scene of his legislation ! 

2. Supj)osition of a divine law necessary. — We can 
not conceive of the sovereis^n Creator Tind Governor 
of the world as not appointing a law to his intelligent 
creatures ; that he should be what the epicureans ac- 
counted of their gods, perfectly careless about the 
world and what may be done in it. As the Maker 
of creatures who are to be wholly and for ever de- 
pendent upon him, he must necessarily have them 



LAW OF GOD. 87 

under his sovereign autlionty. He must, also, ne- 
cessarily have a luill with respect to the state of the 
dispositions, and the order of actions, of his intelligent 
treatures, and he must perfectly know what is right 
ibr them. He would, therefore, as at once the su- 
preme authority and the infallible intelligence, pre- 
scribe to his creatures a law of injunction and prohi- 
bition — a grand rule of discrimination and obligation. 
He would do so, except on one supposition, namely, 
that he had willed to constitute his rational creatures 
such that they must necessarily always be disposed 
and always act rigid, by the infallible propensity of 
their nature — by their own unalterable and eternal 
choice ; so that there could be no possibility of their 
going wrong from either inclination or mistake. But 
the Almighty did not so constitute any natures that 
we know anything of. 

3. Comprehensiveness of the divine law. — Perhaps, 
according to that divine standard, which is the ulti- 
mate abstraction of all relations, analogies, measures, 
and proportions, and in which the laws and princi- 
ples of the natural world, and those of the moral, are 
resolved in the same (are in their original undivided 
essence), the grandeur of a virtue may be as great or 
much greater than that of a volcano, the mischief of 
a vice as great as that of an earthquake. 

4. The law necessarily holy. — As to the quality 
and extent of that law, proceeding from a perfectly 
holy Being, it could not do less than prescribe a per- 
fect holiness in all things. Think of the absurdity 
there is in the idea that its requirements should be 
less than perfect holiness. For that less — what should 
it be ? What would or could the remainder be after 
hoUness up. to a certain point and stopping there? 
It must be not holiness just so far. Not holiness % 
and what must it be, then % What could it be, but 
something unholy, wrong, . sinful ? Thus a law not 
i-equiring perfect rectitude, would so far give an al 



88 poster's thoughts. 

lowance, a sanction^ to what is evil — sin. And from 
HiTn who is perfectly and infinitely holy ! An utter 
absurdity to conceive ! A law from such an author 
will not and can not reduce and accommodate itself 
to an imperfect, fallen, and incapable state of those 
on whom it is imposed . . . exacting no more than just 
what an imperfect, fallen creature can perform — [and] 
alio win or and sanctionino- all the vast amount of un- 
holiness beyond : [else] a strong indisposition to the 
right and disposition to the wrong would become a 
clear acquittance, the greatest depravity confer the 
amplest piivilege of exemption, and an intense and 
perfect aversion to all holiness, as constituting the 
greatest inability to confonn to the divine law, woulcj 
constitute very nearly a perfect innocence. 

5. Law unalterable. — How little is this recognised 
among the multitude amenable to it ! It is as if the 
tables written on Sinai had been subjected to be 
passed through the camp for the people to revise, 
intei'polate, erase, or wholly substitute, at their pleas* 
ure. Never Jesuit's commentary on the Bible falsi- 
fied it more than the world's system of principles 
perverts or supplants that of the Almighty. This 
operation began even in Eden, through " the wis- 
dom that is from beneath," and has continued ever 
since. 

6. CompreJiensive application of the law. — Doubt- 
less not the wide compass of the scene and subjects 
is meant, but the quality of the law as imperative on 
man, its authority and requirements applied to so 
many points, the comprehensiveness, the universality 
of its jurisdiction. It reaches and comprehends the 
whole extent of all things in which there is the dis- 
tinction of right and wrong, good and evil. Now, 
then, think of the almost infinite multiplicity of things 
in which this distinction has a place ; the grand total 
of what is passing in men's minds, converse, and ac- 
tion — is passing at this hour — has been in the course 



LAW OF GOD. 89 

of the day — during the whole cou;se of life of each 
and all. Think how much, how little, of all this can 
be justly considered as withdrawn from the jurisdic- 
tion of the Divine authority and law. A wide rain, 
or the beams of the sun, hardly fall on a greater mul- 
titude and diversity of things. 

7. Complaisancy of holy beings in the law. — Now 
an intelligent creature, in a right state — that is, a 
holy state, in harmony with God — would be deeply 
pleased that all things should be thus marked with a 
signification of his will. For how happy, to be in 
all things at the direction of the Supreme Wisdom ! 
in all things made clearly aware what is confonnity 
to the Divine Excellence ; insomuch that, if the case 
could be supposed of anything of material interest 
being left without this mark of the Divine Will, un- 
der an ecHpse of the light from God, that would to 
such a spirit appear as something distressing, and 
fearful, and port-entous — would be felt as threaten- 
ing some undefinable hazard. To a being possessed 
and filled with the reverential love of God, it would 
be a most acceptable and welcome thing, that thus it 
should be made manifest in all things what is his 
pleasure ; that the whole field of existence and ac- 
tion should bear all over it the decided and precise 
delineations, as on a map, of the ways which his 
creatures are to take. Should it not be so ? Must 
it not be so to an uncorrupted and holy creature of 
God 1 But is it so to the general spirit of mankind ? 
is it so naturally to any of them ] 

8. Distinctions of the law effaced. — It is deplorable 
to consider how large a proportion of all the vices 
and crimes of which mankind were ever guilty, have 
actually constituted, in some or other of their tribes 
and ag'-s, a part of the approved moral and religious 
system. It is questionable whether we could select 
from the worst forms of tui-pitude any one which has 
not been at least admitted among the authorized cus- 

8* 



90 poster's thoughts. 

toms, if not even appointed among the institutes of 
the rehgion, of some portion of the human race. 

9. Dominion of the law sovght to be restricted. — It 
is not a welcome thmg that the law of God is so "ex- 
ceeding broad." Accordingly, its breadth is, in ev- 
ery imaginable way, endeavored to be narrowed. It 
is true that even the very apprehension of it is very 
limited and faint. If the dullness and contractedness 
of apprehension could be set aside for an interval, 
and a palpable, luminous manifestation made of the 
vast compass and the whole order of distinctions of 
this Divine law, it would strike as ten times — a hun- 
dred times — beyond all that had been suspected. 
Yet still, in multitudes of minds, there is apprehen- 
sion enough of such a widely-extended law to cause 
disquietude, to excite reaction and a recourse to any- 
thing that will seem to naiTow that law .... If the 
Divine jurisdiction would yield to contract its com- 
prehension, and retire from all the ground over which 
a practical infidelity heedlessly disregards or deliber- 
ately rejects it, how large a province it would leave 
free. 

10. The great sanction of morals arises from the 
recognition of the Divine law, and not from ciinl gov- 
ernment. — With all its gravity, and phrases of wis- 
dom, and show of homage to virtue, it was, and was 
plainly descried to be, that very same noli me tangere, 
in a disguised form ; a less provoking and hostile 
manner only of keeping up the state of preparation 
for defensive war. Every one knew right well that 
the pure approbation and love of goodness were not 
the source of law ; but that it was an arrangement 
originating and deriving all its force from self-inter- 
est — a contrivance by which each man was glad to 
make the. collective strength of society his guaranty 
against his neighbor's interest and wish to do him 
wrong .... A preceptive system thus estimated could 
not, even had the principles to which it gave expres- 



LAW OF GOD. 91 

sion in the mandates of law, been no other tlian those 
of the soundest morahty, have impressed them with 
the weight of sanctity on the conscience. And all 
this but tends to show the necessity that the rules and 
sanctions of morality to come with simplicity and 
power on the human mind, should primarily emanate, 
and be acknowledf]red as emanatinsr, from a Beinof 
exalted above all implication and competition of in- 
terest with man. 

11. Good principles efficacious only as abetted by 
the sanctions of a Divine laic. — Supposing them intrin- 
sically light, what will that — merely that — avail, amid 
llie commotion of the passions, the beguilements of 
immediate interest, the endless beselment of tempta- 
tions ? Man is not a being to be governed by prin- 
ciples, detached from an overawing power. Set them 
in the best array that you can in his mind, to fight 
the evil powders within and from without, but refuse 
fhem weapons from the armory of heaven — let no 
lightning of the Divine eye, no thunder of the Di- 
vine voice, come in testimony and in aid of their op- 
eration — and how soon they will be overwhelmed 
and trampled down ! like the Israelites when de- 
serted of God in their battles, "the very ark of God 
surrendered to the pagans ! 

12. Second great commandment. — This can not be 
intended in the absolutely and rigorously literal 
sense ; but it must be dictated in a meaning which 
presses severely, all round, on the sphere of exclusive 
self-love — so severely as to compress and crush that 
aifection into a grievous narrowness of space, unless 
it can escape into liberty and action some other way, 
in some modified quality. There is a way in which 
it can expand and indulge itself, without violating the 
solemn law imposed, namely, that self-love or self- 
interest should be exalted to such a temper that its 
gratification, its gratification o? itself, should actually 
very much consist in promoting the ivelfare of others. 



92 Foster's thoughts. 

13. The law to he applied in judging the character 
and, actions of men. — It is a fatal error to take from 
the world itself our principles for judging of the 
world. These must be taken absolutely from the 
Divine authority, and always kept true to the dic- 
tates of that ; for nothing can be more absurd (not to 
say pernicious) than to have a set of rules different 
from them. Therefore it is as in the temple, and at 
the oracles of God, that the principles are to be re- 
ceived and fixed, to go out with forjudging of what 
we behold. And a frequent recourse must he had 
thither, to confirm and keep them pure. The prin 
ciples are thus to be something independent, and as 
it were sovereign, above that which they are to be 
applied to. But instead of this, a great part of man- 
kind let their principles for judging be formed by 
that world itself which they are to obsei-ve and judge. 
They have forjudging by, a whole set of apprehen- 
sions, notions, maxims, moral and religious, not at all 
identical with the Divine dictates. Therefore, not 
through any virtue of candor or charity, but through 
false principles, they perceive but little evil [sin, 
folly] in many of the " works done," which the high 
and pure authority condemns. They do not see the 
beam of " fiery indignation," which, from Heaven, 
strikes here and there ; they do not see shiivelled 
into insignificance many things which the world ac- 
counts most important. It does not come full out in 
their sight how far the actions of men agree, or not 
agree, with their awful future prospects. 

14. Conscience the monitor of the Divine law. — Con- 
science is to communicate with something mysteri- 
ously great, which is without the soul, and abjve it, 
and everywhere. It is the sense, moi-e explicit or 
obscure, of standing in judgment before the Al- 
mighty. That which makes a man feel so, is a 
part of himself; so that the struggle against God 
becomes a struggle with man's own soul. There- 



LAW OF GOD. 93 

fore conscience has often been denominated " the 
God in man." 

1 5 . Th e facilities of conscience for applying tJi e Di- 
vine law. — Now conscience, by having its dwelling 
deep within, has a great advantage as a judge in 
comparison of outward observers. It is seated with 
its lamp down in the hidden world among the vital 
sentiments and movements at the radical depth of 
the dispositions, at the very springs of action, among 
the thoughts, motives, intentions, and wishes. 

16. Conscience restrains from violating the law. — 
The infinite multitude of criminals would have been 
still more criminal but for this. It has often struck 
an irresolution, a timidity, into the sinner, by which 
his intention has been frustrated. Its bitter and vin- 
dictive reproaches after sin, have prevented so speedy 
or frequent repetitions of the sin. It has prevented 
the whole man from being gratified by sin; it has 
been one dissentient power among his faculties, as 
if, among a company of gay revellers, there should 
appear one dark and frowning intruder, whom they 
could neither conciliate nor expel. 

17. Conscience loill minister in executing the pen- 
alty of the laio. — We foresee that it will awake ! and 
with an intensity of life and power proportioned to 
this long sleep, as if it had been growing gigantic 
during its slumber. It will rise up with all that su- 
periority of vigor with which the body will rise at 
the resurrection. It will awake ! — probably in the 
last hours of life. But if not — it will nevertheless 
awake ! In the other world there is something which 
will certainly awake it at the last day. 

18. Conscience perverted obscures the distinctions of 
the law. — One most disastrous circumstance is instant- 
ly presented to our thoughts, namely, that with by far 
the greatest number of men that have lived, conscience 
has been separated from all true knowledge of God 
A.11 heathens, of all ages and countries ; with but lit- 



94 poster's thoughts. 

tie limitation the same may be said of the Mohamme- 
dans ; and to a very great extent it is true of the pa- 
pists. The superior and eternal order of principles 
is nearly out of sight, as in some countiies they rarely 
see the sun or the stars. 

19. Conscience made unfaithful to the law. — Sup- 
posing the whole of what the Divine law condemns, 
and therefore conscience ought, to be measured by a 
scale of one hundred degrees of aggravation — then 
the censure beginning at one, will become extremely 
severe by the time of rising to fifty. But let this first 
fifty be struck off, as harmless, in accommodation to 
the general notions and customs — what then'? Why 
then, conscience will but begin, and in slight terms, 
its censures at the fifty-first degree, and so, at the 
very top of the scale, will pronounce with but just 
that emphasis which was due at the point where it 
began. 

20. Modes of evading the law. — (1.) The bold, di- 
rect, decisive one, is — infidelity : to deny the exist- 
ence of the Supreme Lawgiver himself. Then the 
Sovereign Voice is silent. Then the destruction of 
the Divine law takes, as it were, from the centre in- 
stead of by a contraction of its wide extension. Then 
all tlungs are right which men wish, and can, and 
dare do ; right, as to any concern of conscience — the 
practical regulations which atheists would feel the 
necessity for, would be only a matter of policy and 
mutual self-defence. 

(2.) To reject a revelation is an expedient little 
less summary and effectual for the purpose. A God 
believed or supposed, but making no declaration of 
his will and the retribution, would give very little dis- 
turbance to sinners. For as to what has bee^n termed 
natural religion, though a fine systematic theory may 
be framed, it is, for anything like practical effect, no 
more than a dream. It was so among the bulk of 
the cultivated heathens ; and now the rejecters of 



LAW OF GOD. 95 

revelation would be sure not to allow themselves to 
be defrauded of their advantage by admitting any- 
thing more than they liked of the rules and authority 
of natural religion. 

(3.) By the indulgence of sin, not only in action or 
thought, but also in the heart. It is by the under- 
standing- and the conscience that the Divine law is to 
be apprehended in its .amplitude. Now nothing is 
more notorious than the baneful effect which in- 
dulged and practised sin has on both these. It in- 
flicts a grossness on the understanding, which ren- 
ders it totally unadapted to take cognizance of any- 
thing which is to be spiritually discerned — as una- 
dapted as our bodily senses are to perceive spirits. 
It throws a thick obscurity over the whole vision of 
the Divine law, so that nothing of it is distinctly per- 
ceived, except where sometimes some part of it 
breaks out in thunder. The conscience partakes the 
stupefaction — is insensible to a thousand accusations 
and menaces of the Divine law, every one of which 
ought to have been pungent and painful. 

(4.) The general operation of self-love. The be- 
ing has a certain sense of not being in a state of peace 
and harmony with God, but of alienation, opposition, 
and in a degree hostility, but still devotedly loves it- 
self. It has therefore a set of self^defensive feelings 
against him. But since it could not defend itself 
against his power, it endeavors to defend itself against 
his law. It ventures to question the necessity or pro- 
priety of one point of his law ; refuses to admit the 
plain intei-pretation of another, or to admit the cleai 
inferences from undeniable rules. It makes lar^re 

o 

portions of the Divine law refer to other men and 
times ; to special and transient occasions and circum- 
stances ; is ingenious in inventing exemptions for it- 
self; weakens the force of both the meaningr and the 
authority of the Divine dictates which it can not avert 
from their application to itself Thus it "renders 



98 Foster's thoughts. 

void" much of both the spirit and the letter ; and thus 
places itself amid a dwindled and falsified system of 
the Divine legislation. 

(5.) The influence of the customs and maxims of 
the world. For a moment, suppose these admitted 
to constitute the supreme law and standard. Let all 
that these adjudge superfluous, be left out and re- 
jected ; all that these aecount indifferent, be set down 
so ; all that these warrant by practice, be formally 
sanctioned ; all that these pronounce honorable and 
admirable, be inscribed in golden letters ; all that 
these have, settled as true wisdom, be adopted as 
principles and oracles. Especially, let what the cus- 
tom and notions of the world have mainly satisfied 
themselves with in respect to religion be admitted, 
as the true scheme of our relations and duties to God. 
This system now ! — Let it be placed opposite to the 
Divine law ! Would it not be like Baal's prophets 
confronting Elijah 1 like Satan propounding doctrine 
to our Lord 1 like a holy angel and the devil looking 
in each other's face ? But, think ! — this is actually 
the system on which the notions and habits of the 
multitude are formed ! Thus the Divine law, in its 
exceeding breadth, is n:ade, as it is said of the heav- 
ens, to " depart as a scroll that is rolled together." 

(6.) A notion and a feeling as if, man being so very 
imperfect a creature, it can not be that there is an 
absolutely perfect law in authority over him. It is 
impossible for him to meet such a law in full con- 
formity, and therefore it is a moderate and more in- 
dulgent one that he is responsible to. But where is 
there any declaration of such a law? What can the 
idea really mean, but a tolerance and approval of 
something that is evil ? Something different from 
that which is perfect — less than — what can this be 
but evil 1 Shall there be a law from the holy God to 
sanction evil, because man is evil ] 

(7.) The plea of grace, which pretends to absolve 



LAW OF GOD. 97 

Christians from the claims of the sovereign rule, he- 
cause their justification is on an entirely dijfferent 
ground. So that they stand as independent of the 
law as he is who appointed it. There are different 
degrees in which this odious heresy is made a prac- 
tical principle. A spirit truly renewed through di- 
vine grace, becomes an emphatic approver of the law. 
It is a reflection of the chai^acter of Him whom he 
adores, and wishes to resemble. 
9 



9S poster's thoughts. 



CHAPTER IV. 

VIEWS AND ILLUSTRATIONS OF THE INDIVIDUAL AND 
SOCIAL DEPRAVITY OF MAN. 

1. Sinful nature of man disclosed hy his acts. — 
Look at the general qualities of actions over this wide 
world, and think what they collectively testify oiman ! 
And in noticing men's actions in the detail, it will be 
a useful exercise and habit to ti-ace them back to 
what they proceed from in the nature of man, and 
what they therefore show to be in that nature. Hu- 
man nature discloses itself freely, fully, and fear- 
lessly, in some men; with caution, art, and partial 
concealment, in others. But a multitude of unequiv- 
ocal manifestations of all its attributes will present 
themselves to the attentive observer. It is of course 
that he ought to maintain candor or rather say equi- 
ty; but he is not to let go the plain maxim that the 

fruits show the tree For whence does all the 

fro "^ ^ ^^ ^^ heart becoming 
evil in action ^^ . so much evil having come 

drained into P^^'^J' / is a perennial fountain, unless 
from it 1 Alasltbeie P 

a Divine band close 1. ^j ^^^ selfish.— The m'Mu 
2. Ruh7ig pcLssi^^^^^ j.^^g consists in the love of 
strength of nnnian distinction, of power, and of 

sensual gratification, 03 

money. . of wickedness, repressed hy 

3. TU vast ^.^^"^^'^jg chargedfo the account of hv 

menaced retribuUon^^^^^^^-^^^^^^ ^^ perpetmte an ini- 

fnan nature.- ^ wrong to his fellow-moi'tals, 

equity, of the nature of a 



DEPRAVIiy OF MAN. 99 

is apprized that he shall provoke a reaction, to resist or 
punish him ; that he shall incur as gi-eat an evil as 
that he is disposed to do, or greater; that either a 
revenue regardless of all formalities of iustice will 
strike him, or a process mstituted m organized soci- 
ety w^ill vindictively reach his property, liberty, or life. 
This defensive array, of all men against all men, com- 
pels to remain shut up within the mind an immensity 
of wickedness which is there burning to come out 

into action It is not very uncommon to hear 

credit given to human nature, apparently in sober 
simplicity, for the whole amount of the negation of 
bad actions thus prevented, as just so much genuine 
virtue, by some dealers in moral and theological spec- 
ulation. 

4. Civil laio a7id j)7iilosophy can not avail fully to 
repress depravity. — There was nothing to insinuate 
or to force its way into the recesses of the soul, to 
apply there a repressive power to the depraved ar- 
dor which glowed in the passions. That was left, 
inaccessible and inextinguishable, as the subterra- 
nean fires in a volcanic region Reflect on the 

extent of human genius, in its powers of invention, 
combination, and adaptation ; and then think of all 
this faculty — in an immense number of minds, through 
many ages, and in every imaginable variety of situa- 
tion, exerted with unremitting activity in aid of the 
wrong propensities. 

5. 'Philosophers overlooking the moral perversion 
of human nature blind guides. — Here in a moral sense 
are wheels that will not turn — springs without elas- 
ticity — levers that break in the application of their 
force ; and you tell me there is no radical fault in the 
machinery ! One thing is clear, that I can never learn 
from instructors like you, how to have the miserable 
disorder rectified. You know too little of mankind 
— about yourselves — about the great standard. 

6. Reproductive power of moral evil — It is per 



100 Foster's thoughts. 

petually invigorated by the very destruction which 
it works ; as if it fed upon the slain to strengthen 
itself for new slaughter, and absorbed into its own, 
every life which it takes away. For it is in the na- 
ture of moral evil, as acting on human beings, to 
create to itself new facilities, means, and force, for 
prolonging that action. And to what a dreadful per- 
fection of evil might such a race attain but for death, 
that cuts the term of individuals so short, and but for 
the Spirit of God, that converts some, and puts a 
degree of restraint on the rest. 

7. Depravity hrvpressed upon th e chief works ofm an, 
— False religion that havS raised so many superb tem- 
ples, of which the smallest remaining ruins bear an 
impressive character of grandeur ; that has prompted 
the creation, from shapeless masses of substance, of 
so many beautiful or monstrous fonns, representing 
fabulous super-human and divine beings ; and that 
has produced some of the most stupendous works in- 
tended as abodes, or monuments, of the dead. It is 
the evil next in eminence, war, that has caused the 
earth to be embossed with so many thousands of mas- 
sy structures in the form of towers and defensive 
walls — so many remains of ancient cam.ps — so many 
traces of the labors by which armies overcame the 
obstacles opposed to them by rivers, rocks, or mount- 
ains — and so many triumphal edifices raised to per- 
petuate the glory of conquerors. It is the oppressive 
self-importance of imperial tyrants, and of their infe- 
rior commanders of human toils, that has erected those 
magnificent residences which make a far greater figure 
in our imagination, than the collective dwellings of 
the humbler population of a whole continent, and that 
has in some spots thrown the surfaceof the earth into 
new foiTTis. 

8. Character of the mass not to he inferred, from 
individual examples of virtue. — There was perhaps 
a learned and vigorous monai'ch, and there were 



DEPRAVITY OF MAN. 101 

Cecils, and Walsinghams, and Shaksperes, and Sid- 
neys, and Spencers, with many other powerful think- 
ers and actors, to render it the proudest age of our 
national glory. And we thoughtlessly admit on our 
imagination this splendid exhibition as in some man- 
ner involving or implying the collective state of the 
people in that age ! The ethereal summits of a tract 
of the moral world are conspicuous and fair in the 
lustre of heaven, and we take no thought of the im- 
mensely greater proportion of it which is sunk in 
gloom and covered with the shadows of ignorance 
and vice. 

9. Wickedness amid scenes of beauty. — That there 
is a luxuriant verdure — that there are flowers — rich 
fields — fruitful trees — pleasing sounds, and tastes, 
and odors — streams — soft gales — picturesque land- 
scapes — what is all this as set against the other fact, 
that there are — in almost infinite mass, and number, 
and variety — bad dispositions and passions — bad 
principles — wicked thoughts — vile language — im- 
pieties and crimes of all possible kinds ? 

10. Appalling aspect of marC s depravity . — Consid- 
ering man in this view, the sacred oracles have repre- 
sented him as a more melancholy object than Nineveh 
or Babylon in ruins ; and an infinite aggregate of ob- 
vious facts confirms the doctrine. 

11. Popular moral ignorance. The masses in a 
condition analogous to what their physical existence 
would have been under a total and permanent eclipse 
of the sun. Tt was perpetual night in their souls, 
with all the phenomena incident to night, except the 
sublimity. 

12. A figure of the moral state of the world — The 
right state of the sun is to be one full orb of radiance ; 
that though there be some small spots and dimmer 
points, it should be in effect a complete and glorious 
luminary ! Imagine then if you can this effulgence 
extinguished, and turned to blackness over all its glo- 

9* 



102 poster's thoughts. 

rious face, excepting here and there a mos^ diminu- 
tive point, emitting one bright ray like a small star. 
What a ghastly phenomena! and if it continued so 
the utter ruin of the system. But such we behold 
the condition of the human race In the incal- 
culable human mass of a whole idolatrous world, we 
are shpwn here and there an individual, or a diminu- 
tive combination of individuals, little shining particles, 
specimens of what the right state of the world would 
have been. 

13. Aggregate view of the history of the world 
appalling. — I have sometimes thought, if the sun 
were an intelligence, he would be horribly incensed 
at the world he is appointed to enlighten ; such a 
tale of ages, exhibiting a tiresome repetition of stu- 
pidity, follies, and crimes. 

14. Common persuasion of human depravity. — 
We have such an habitual persuasion of the general 
depravity of human nature, that in falling among 
strangers we always reckon on their being irreligious, 
till we discover some specific indication of the con- 
trary. 

15. Popular ignorance intercej^ts the rays of moral 
illumination. — Utter io^norance is a most eff'ectual 
fortification to a bad state of the mind. Prejudice 
may perhaps be removed ; unbelief may be reasoned 
with ; even demoniacs have been compelled to bear 
witness to the truth ; but the stupidity of confirmed 
ignorance not only defeats the ultimate efficacy of the 
means for making men wiser and better, but stands 
in preliminary defiance to the very act of their ap- 
plication. It reminds us of an account, in one of the 
relations of the French Egyptian campaigns, of the 
attempt to reduce a gariison posted in a bulky fort 
of mud. Had the defences been of timber, the be- 
siegers might have set fire to and burnt them ; had 
they been of stone, they might have shaken and ul- 
timately breached them by the batteiy of theii can- 



DEPRAVITY OP MAN. 103 

non; or they might have underaiined and blown them 
up. But the huge mound of mud had nothing sus- 
ceptible of fire or any other force ; the missiles from 
the artillery were discharged but to be buried in the 
dull mass ; and all the means of demolition w^ere 

baffled He finds, as he might expect to -find, 

that a conscience without knowledge has never taken 
but a very small portion of the man's habits of life, 
under its jurisdiction ; and that it is a most hopeless 
thing to attempt to send it back reinforced, to reclaim 
and conquer, through all the past, the whole extent 
of its rightful but never assumed dominion. 

16. Stupidity of ignorant wickedness at the ap- 
proach of death. — They had actually never thought 
enough of death to have any solemn associations with 
the idea. And their faculties were become so rigid- 
ly shrunk up, that they could not now admit them ; 
no, not while the portentous spectre was unveiling 
his visage to them, in near and still nearer approach ; 
not when the element of another world was begin- 
ning to penetrate through the rents of their mortal 
tabernacle. It appeared that literally their thoughts 
could not go out from what they had been through 
life immersed in, to contemplate, with any realizing 
feeling, a gi'and change of being, expected so soon 
to come on them. They could not go to the fearful 
brink to look off. It was a stupor of the soul not to 
be awakened but by the actual plunge into the reali- 
ties of eternity. " I hope it will please God soon to 
release me,'' was the expression to his religious med- 
ical attendant of such an ignorant and insensible mor- 
tal within an hour of his death which was evidendy 
and directly brought on by his vices. 

17. Portentous aspect of 7?iasses of huvian beings 
perishing for lack of knowledge. — We have often 
mused, and felt a gloom and dreariness spreading 
over the mind while musing, on descriptions of the 
aspect of a country after a pestilence has left it in 



104 poster's THCUGflTS. 

desolation, or of a region where the people are per- 
ishing by famine. It has seemed a mournful thing 
to behold, in contemplation, the multitude of hfeless 
forms, occupying in silence the same abodes in which 
they had lived, or scattered upon the gardens, fields, 
and roads ; and then to see the countenances of the 
beings yet languishing in life, looking despair, and 
impressed with the signs of approaching death. We 
have even sometimes had the vivid and horrid picture 
offered to our imagination, of a number of human 
creatures shut up by their fellow-mortals in some 
stronghold, under an entire privation of sustenance ; 
and presenting each day their imploring, or infuriated, 
or grimly sullen, or more calmly woful countenances, 
at the iron and impregnable grates ; each succeeding 
day more haggard, and miserable, more perfect in 
the image of despair ; and after a while appearing 
each day one fewer, till at last all have sunk. Now 
shall we feel it as a relief to turn in thought, as to a 
sight of less portentous evil, from the inhabitants of 
a country, or from those of such an accursed prison- 
house, thus pining away, to behold the different spec- 
tacle of national tribes, or any more limited portion 
of mankind, on whose minds are displayed the full 
effects of knowledge denied ; who are under the pro- 
cess of whatever destruction it is, that spirits can suf- 
fer from want of the vital aliment to the intelligent 
nature, especially from "a famine of the words of the 
Lord ?".... Since that period when ancient history, 
strictly so named, left off describing the state of man- 
kind, more than a myriad of millions of our race have 
been on earth, and quitted it without one ray of the 
knowledge the most important to spirits sojourning 
here, and going hence. 

18. Retrospect of the lieatlien world. — We can not 
look that way but we see the whole field covered 
with inflicters and sufferers, not seldom interchanging 
those characters. If that field widens to our view, it 



DEPRAVITY OF MAN. 105 

is still, to the utmost line to which the shade clears 
away, a scene of cmelty, oppression, and slavery ; of 
the strong trampling on the weak, and the weak of- 
ten attempting to bite at the feet of the sti-ong ; of 
rancorous animosities and murderous competitions of 
persons raised above the mass of the community ; of 
treacheries and massacres ; and of war, between 
hordes, and cities, and nations, and empires — war 
neve?-, in spirit, intermitted, and suspended sometimes 
in act only to acquire renewed force for destruction, 
or to find another assemblage of hated creatures to 
cut in pieces. 

19. State of the pagan world. — While the immense 
aggregate is displayed to the mental view, as per- 
vaded, agitated, and stimulated, by the restless forces- 
of appetites and passions, and those forces operating 
with an impulse no less perverted than strong, let it 
be asked what kinds and measure of restraint there 
could be upon such a world of creatures so actuated, 
to keep them from rushing in all ways into evil. 

20. Thick darkness of Romanism intimtated by the 
sombre shadows still resting on nations and the church. 
— Indeed, the thickness of the preceding darkness' 
was strikingly manifested by the deep shade which 
still continued stretched over the nation, in spite of 
the newly-iisen luminary, whose beams lost their 
brightness in pervading it to reach the popular mind, 
and came with the faintness of an obscured and te- 
dious dawn. 

21. Savage state. — But he would become sober 
enough, if compelled to travel a thousand miles 
through the desert, or over the snow, with some of 
these subjects of his lectures ard legislation; to ac- 
company them in a hunting excursion ; to choose in 
a stormy night between exposure in the open air and 
in the smoke and grossness of their cabins ; to ob- 
serve the intellectual faculty narrowed almost to a 
point, limited to a scanty number of the meanest 



106 Foster's thoughts. 

class of ideas ; to find by repeated expeiiments that 
his kind of ideas could neither reach their under- 
standing nor excite their curiosity ; to see the raven- 
ous appetite of wolves succeeded for a season by a 
stupidity insensible even to the few interests which 
kindle the utmost ardor of a savage ; to witness loath- 
some habits occasionally diversified by abominable 
ceremonies; or to be for once the spectator of some 
of the circumstances which accompany the wars of 
savages. 

22. Depravity a harrier to the henejicent operation 
of government. — No form of government will be prac- 
tically good, as long as the nations to be governed are 
in a controversy, by their vices and irreligion, with 
the Supreme Governor. 

23. Depravity assimilates civil institutions to its 
own standard. — It will pervert even the very schemes 
and operations by which the world would be im- 
proved, thoijgh their first principles were pure as 
Heaven ; and r g , ^lution s. great di scov eri es. au<n nent- 
erl sr.i £jxae^?^iid new,forms of p olif);,.^vi]Ubft^,ome^n 
effect what may be denom inntedtha-sjiLhine piechan- 

* u^ of d£ 4»»a-v-i-&v . 
*^4. Of an extremely depraved child. — T never saw 
so much essence of devil put in so small a vessel. 

25. The pagan world — its degrading rites, degra- 
ded population, and evidences of spiritual death. — Let 
him [the observer] enter a country where the majes- 
tic idea of a Deity, originally imparted to our race, is 
transmuted into an endless miscellany of fantastic and 
odious fables, in what are esteemed the sacred books, 
and in the minds of that small proportion of the in- 
habitants that read them ; and where the mass of mil- 
lions, together too with the more cultivated few, fall 
prostrate in adoration of the rudest pieces of mud 
and lumber that their own hands can shape. Let 
him walk out from his retired room or tent, after his 
Boul has been raised in prayer to a real and an infi- 



DEPRAVITY OP MAN. 107 

nite Being, and approach one of those many shrines, 
which, in a populous district, he may see deforming 
the country around him, and behold a number of crea- 
tures in his own shape fixed in petrified reverence, 
or performing grave ritual antics, before a filthy fig- 
ure, or sometimes an unshaped lump of wood or stone, 
daubed black and red, which piece of rubbish, with- 
out a shape, or in a shape more vile and ugly than it 
is possible for European hands to make, stands there 
in substitution for that Infinite Spirit which he has 
just been worshipping : it stands for the most part in 
real and perfect substitution ; but if it were in repre- 
sentation, the case would be very little better 

Let him observe, as performed at the dictate of the 
laws, customs, and priests, of this superstition, such 
barbarous and whimsical self-inflicted penances and 
torture, and such sacrifices of living relatives, as it 
would be supposed some possessing fiend had com- 
pelled the wretched pagans to adopt for his diver- 
sion ; let him observe, amid these tyrannic rigors of 
a super-conscience, an entire want of conscience with 
respect to the great principles of morality, and the 
extinction in a great degree of the ordinary sympa- 
thies of human nature for suffering objects ; let him 
notice the deceitful and cruel character of the priest, 
exactly conformable to the spirit of the superstition ; 
and let him consider those unnatural but insuperable 
distinctions of the classes of society, which equally 
degrade the one by a stupid servility, and the other 
by a stupid pride. And, finally, let him reflect that 
each day many thousands of such deluded creatures 
are dying, destitute of all that knowledge, those con- 
solations, and those prospects, for which he adores 
the author of the Christian revelation. How would 
he be able to quell the sentiment of horror which 
would arise in his mind at every view and every 
thought of what we have thus supposed him to wit- 
ness ? H3 would feel as if something demoniac in- 



108 poster's thoughts. 

fested all the land and pervaded all the air, inspiring 
a general madness previous to a generar-execution. 
For he would feel an unconquerable impression that 
a land could not be so abandoned of the Divine mer- 
cy, but to be soon visited by the Divine vengeance ; 
and that vengeance he would hardly at some mo- 
ments be able to deprecate, while beholding the oc- 
casional extraordinary excesses of frantic abomina- 
tion. It would appear to him that the very time was 
come for a glorious display of justice, and that such 
a solitude as Noah found, on descending from the 
ark, would be a delightful sequel to this populous 

and raging tumult of impiety A moral sense 

that belongs to man is wanting in them ; so that infi- 
nitely the most important of the elements and phe- 
nomena of the world are unapparent and impalpable 
to them : just as much so as that class of things and 
properties are to our present five senses, which might, 
as Locke observes, have been perceptible to us by 
means of a sixth or seventh sense, which the Creator 
could no doubt have given us. To these men, all the 
concerns and interests designated by the terms divine, 
spiritual, immortal, are nearly the same as non-existent. 

26. Depravity evinced in a universal tendency to so- 
cial deterioration. — All political institutions will prob- 
ably, from whatever cause, tend to become worse 
by time. If a system were now formed, that should 
meet all the philosopher's and the philanthropist's 
wishes, it would still have the same tendency ; only 
I do hope that henceforward to the end of time, men's 
minds will be intensely awake to the nature and op- 
eration of their institutions ; so that after a new era 
shall commence, governments shall not slide into de- 
pravity without being keenly watched, nor be watch- 
ed without the sense and spirit to arrest their de- 
terioration. 

27. The formidable prevalence of evil an inscrutahlt 
mystery.— ^The prevalence of evil in only this one 



DEPRAVITY OF MAN. 109 

world, is an inexpressibly mysterious and awful fact ; 
insomuch, that all attempts to explain how it is con- 
sistent with the perfect goodness of an Almighty Be- 
ing, have left us in utter despair of any approach 
toward comprehending it. A pious spirit, not delu- 
ded by any of the vain and presumptuous theones 
of philosophical or theological explanation, while 
looking toward this unfathomable subject, can repose 
only in a general confidence that the dreadful fact, 
of the prevalence of evil in this planet, is in some un- 
imaginable way combined with such relations, and 
such a state of the grand whole of the divine empire, 
that it is perfectly consistent with infinite goodness in 
Him that made and directs all things. 

28. Depravity evinced hy formidable opposition 
to the progress of religion, and relentless persecution 
of the witnesses to the truth in successive ages. — 
Through a vast space of past time, there has been 
only a most diminutive number on the whole earth, 
of such as truly knew, and feared, and served God. 
And during periods in which they have been a some- 
what more perceptible portion of the race, think how 
the world has often treated them ; as if they were 
foreigners and intruders, occupying a place to which 
they had no right. A very considerable portion of 
the history of the world, is a record of the persecu- 
tions that have raged against them. Monarchs, with 
the co-operation of their counsellors, captains, priests, 
and the ignorant brutish multitude, have ever sought 
to make it a chief distinction and glory of their reigns 
that they zealously endeavored the destruction of 
the saints of the Most High. . . . The malignity of hu- 
man nature, has appeared tenfold malignant when 
vented in the direction of hostility to true religion. 
It has then glared out a fiend, delighting and luxu- 
riating in savage barbarity. 
10 



110 Foster's thoughts. 



CHAPTER V. 

VIEWS OF CHRISTIANITY. ITS DOCTRINES AND AP- 
PLICATIONS. 

1. GompendiousnessoftJie Christian scheme. — There 
is a sublime economy of invisible realities. There 
is the Supreme Existence, an infinite and eternal 
Spirit. There are spiritual existences, that have 
kindled into brightness and power, from nothing, at 
his creating will. There is a universal government, 
omnipotent, all-wise, and righteous, of that Supreme 
Being over the creation. There is the immense tribe 
of human spirits, in a most peculiar and alarming pre- 
dicament, held under eternal obligation of conformity 
to a law proceeding from the holiness of that Being, 
but perverted to a state of disconformity to it, and 
opposition to him. Next, there is a signal anomaly 
of moral government, the constitution of a new state 
of relation between the Supreme Governor and this 
alienated race, through a Mediator, who makes an 
atonement for human iniquity, and stands represent- 
ative before Almighty Justice, for those who in grate- 
ful accordance to the mysterious appointment con- 
sign themselves to his charge. There are the several 
doctrines declaratory of this new constitution through 
all its parts There is the view of religion in its op- 
erative character, or the doctrine of the application 
of its truths and precepts by a divine agency to 
transform the mind and rectify the life. And this 
solemn array of all the sublimest reality, and most 
important intelligence, is extending infinitely away 



DOCTRINES OF CHRISTIANITY. Ill 

beyond the sensible horizon of our present state to 
an invisible world, to which the spirits of men pro- 
ceed at death for judgment and retribution, and with 
the prospect of living for ever. 

2. Salvation by the law impossible. — The plan by 
the law was evidently an utterly ruined plan ; it could 
not save one ; it could only condemn to perish. If 
men were to be saved, and still upon the original 
economy, it was to be independently of the law, and 
in opposition to it. But, independently, and in op- 
position ! Who would make them independent 1 
Who would bear them harmless in that opposition ? 
If the divine goodness in the form of mercy would 
do it — what became of the divine goodness in the 
fonn of righteousness ? Should the rebellious crea- 
tures utterly violate and demolish the economy of 
justice, and come triumphant out of its ruin as hav 
ing forced the Supreme Governor to the bare ex- 
pedient of mercy ] 

3. A Savior unappreciated icithout achnowledg- 
ment of sin. — While man is not considered as lost, 
the mind can not do justice to the expedient, or to 
" the only name under heaven," by which he can be re- 
deemed. Accordingly the gift of Jesus Christ does 
not appear to be habitually recollected as the most 
illustiious instance of the beneficence of God that has 
ever come to human knowledge, and as the single 
fact which, more than all others, has relieved the 
awfulness of the mystery in which our world is en- 
veloped. No thankful joy seems to beam forth at the 
thought of so mighty an interposition, and of him who 
was the agent of it. 

4. Necessity of atonement. — Think intently on the 
malignant nature of sin ; and if there be truth in God, 
it is inexpressibly odious to him. Then, if neverthe- 
less, such sinners are to be pardoned, does it not 
eminently comport with the divine holiness — is it not 
due to it — that in the very medium of their pardon, 



112 poster's thoughts. 

there should be some signal and awful act of a judi- 
cial and penal kind to record and render memorable 
for ever a righteous God's judgment — estimate of that 
which he pardons ] 

5. Co77ifor table reliance upon the atonement. — With 
this self-condemning review, and with nothing but 
an uncertain and possibly small remainder of life in 
prospect, how emphatically oppressive would be the 
conscious situation, if there were not that great pro- 
pitiation, that redeeming sacrifice, to rest upon for 
pardon and final safety. 

6. A divine liberator from the prejudices and pas- 
sions of depravity necessary, — Many are in subjection 
to their appetites ; many to the most foolish, many to 
the most vicious passions. Now to them, what an 
inconsiderable good is their political liberty, as com- 
pared with the evil of this slavery ! and yet, amid it 
all, there is the self-complacency, the pride, the boast- 
ing of freedom ! 

Take another exemplification. A high-spirited 
man in very independent circumstances, with confi- 
dence and self-sufficiency conspicuous on his front ; 
in numberless cases he can and will do as he pleases ; 
he has the means of commanding deference and ob- 
sequiousness, defies and spurns interference and op- 
position ; and says " I am fiee !" For all this, per- 
haps, he is but the stronger slave. All the while, 
his whole mind and moral being may be utterly ser- 
vile to some evil passion, some corrupt purpose, some 

Tain interest, some tyrannic habit The mass of 

mankind are enslaved. The cool, sagacious, philo- 
sophic observer thinks so. The devout Christian 
observer thinks so. The illuminated dying estimator 
thinks so. And all the real friends of our race would 
unite to implore that the truth might come to perform 
its mighty work ; or, in other words, that the glorious 
Agent of human deliverance, the Son of God would 
eome and accomplish that work by means of " the 



DOCTRINES OF CHRISTIANITY. 113 

truth." .... If we would form a notion quite com- 
prehensive of what may be regarded as placing- and 
keeping men's minds in an enslaved state, we should 
include ignorance and all error tiirough which they 
receive injury, together with all perversion in the 
passions, and all that perverts them. Now against 
all this in its full breadth, truth, universal truth, is op- 
posed ; and the effectual application of truth would 

counteract and reverse it all Here is the grand 

and urgent occasion for the Spirit of God to work — 
to transfuse a new and redeeming principle through 
the moral being, and then the man is free ! The 
freed spirit feels that a hateful, direful enchantment 
is broken, and flies to its God. 

7. Mystery of the origin of evil. — We must con- 
fess we should think that the less use isjnade in reli- 
gion the better, of philosophizings which are precipi- 
tate toward that black abyss.' It really would appear 
to us, that abstract reasonings on will, and power, 
and accountableness, in relation to man, can afford 
no assistance, none, toward the fundamental removal 
of theological difficulties ; and that the only resource, 
in a matter like that to which we have been advert- 
ing, is in a simple submissive acceptance of the dic- 
tates, and adherence to the practice, of the inspired 
teachers, and of their Teacher. 

8. Technical terms should he used sparingly in dis- 
tinguishing Christian doctrines. — Technical terms 
have been the lights of science, but, in many instan- 
ces, the shades of religion. 

9. Gospel demeaned by bigoted interpreters. — You 
might often meet with a systematic writer, in whose 
hands the whole wealth, and variety, and magnifi- 
cence, of revelation, shrink into a meager list of doc- 
trinal points, and who will let no verse in the Bible 
say a syllable till it has placed itself under one of 
them. You may meet with a Christian polemic, who 
seems to value the arguments for evangelical truth 

10* 



114 POSTERNS THOUGHTS. 

as an assassin values his dagger, and for the same 
reason ; with a descanter on the invisible world, who 
makes you think of a popish cathedral, and from the 
vulgarity of whose illuminations you are excessively 
glad to escape into the solemn twilight of faith ; or 
with a grim zealot for a theory of the Divine attri- 
butes, which seems to delight in representing the 
Deity as a dreadful king of furies, whose dominion 
is overshaded with vengeance, whose music is the 
cries of victims, and whose glory requires to be illus- 
trated by the ruin of his creation. 

10. Ignorance and hi gotry in Christian pi'ofession. 
— Some people's religion is for want of sense ; if they 
had this, they would have no religion, for their reli- 
gion is no more than prejudice — superstition. 

11. Specimen of a religious higot. — [Said of a nar- 
row-minded religionist.] Mr. T. sees religion, not as 
a sphere, but as a line ; and it is the identical line in 
which he is moving. He is like an African buffalo — 
sees right forward, but nothing on the right hand or 
the left. He would not perceive a legion of angels 
or of devils at the distance of ten yards, on the one 
side or the other. 

12. Coivardice of bigoted errorists. — When the 
majestic form of Truth approaches, it is easier for a 
disingrenuous mind to start aside into a thicket till 
she is past, and then reappearing, say, " It was not 
Truth," than to meet her, and bow, and obey. 

13. The lines of revelation and true philosophy 
coalesce and become identical. — Theology and philos- 
ophy have been entirely separated by most divines, 
and some have attempted an awkward association of 
them; they joined them without producing unity or 
union. All the emanations of both ought to converge 
to one focus ; and thence, combined and identified, 
dart forward, a living beam of light, in infinitum. 

14. Metaphors of Scripture should not be forced to 
an undue application. — It is degrading to spiritual 



DOCTRINES OP CHRISTIANITY. 116 

ideas to be extensively and systematically transmuted, 
I might say cooked, into sensual ones. The analogy 
between meaner things and dignified ones should 
never be pursued further than one or two points of 
necessary illustration ; for if it is traced to every cir- 
cumstance in which a resemblance can be found or 
fancied, the meaner thing no longer serves the hum- 
ble and useful purpose of merely illustrating some 
qualities of the great one, but becomes formally its 
representative and equal. By their being made to 
touch at all points, the meaner is constituted a scale 
to measure and to limit the magnitude of the superior, 
and thus the impoitance of the one shrinks to the in- 
significance of the other. 

15. The character and offices of Christ better dis- 
tinguished by the language of Scripture than of creeds. 
— As to my opinion respecting the person of Christ, 
I deem it the wisest rule to use precisely the language 
of scripture, without charging myself with a definite, 
a sort of mathematical hypothesis, and the intermina- 
ble perplexities of explication and inference. 

16. Want of discrimination in distinguishing the 
righteous and the wicked. — Have you not had a sense 
of extreme absurdity, in hearing or reading some re- 
ligious teachers, representing two classes as complete 
antipodes, without regard to discrimination and de- 
grees 1 Let a carnal, unconverted man be described, 
and the character consists of the whole account of 
human depravity. But let them describe a convert- 
ed man, and there is just the entiie reverse. But 
where is the man that will dare to present himself as 
this complete reverse ] 

17. Deep sense of unworthiness proper to the most 
moral — even the young. — That such a mind should 
feel any violent sense of guilt, or overwhelming ter- 
rors of Divine justice, it would be out of all consis- 
tency to expect or require. But I ayn anxious that 
he should feel an impressive general conviction of a 



116 poster's thoughts. 

depraved and unworthy nature, and the necessity of 
pardon and reconciliation through Jesus Christ ; that 
he should especially be sensible of the evil and guilt 
of a deficient love and devotion to God, and of the 
indisposition to apply the thoughts, desires, and ear- 
nest efforts, to the grand business of life. This order 
of conviction and solicitude I wish and pray that he 
may feel, and then, after a life so nearly blameless, 
in a practical view, I should be greatly consoled and 
assured. 

18. Salvatirm hy foAih in Jems Christ. — Repose 
your soul, with all its interests and hopes, on that 
perfect work of our Lord and Savior. It is a com- 
plete salvation for you to rely upon, independent of 
any virtues, and in triumph over conscfious and la- 
mented sins in your own nature. It is expressly as 
being unable to attain virtues and grace to satisfy the 
Divine law and an enlightened conscience — exactly 
AS being conscious of defect and sin which yo« con- 
demn and deplore — it is in this very character and 
condition that you are to embrace the salvation ac- 
complished through the suffeiings of the Redeemer. 
And it comes to you in a Divine fullness which par- 
dons all sin, and needs no virtues of your own for 
your acceptance before the righteous Judge. It sets 
aside at once all that you can attain, and all that you 
condemn, in yourself and of your own, and gives you 
a blessed acquittance on another ground. It makes no 
stipulation or previous condition for some certain es- 
tablished degrees of one virtuous principle or another 
in your soul. It tells you that all the degrees of all 
the virtues are equally incompetent and foreign to 
the great pui-pose, and invites and conjures you to 
cast yourself wholly on the all-sufficiency of Him in 
whom all fullness of merit and righteousness dwells. 
It avowedly takes you as defective and sinful, not- 
withstanding all that you labor and strive, and says 
"Behold the Lamb of God that taketh away sin.*' 



4 



DOCTRINES OF CHRISTIAXITY. 117 

How constantly, through the New Testament, is it 
represented that this committing- of the soul to the 
merciful and exalted Sa\*ior, Just as it is, with all its 
conscious weakness, incapacity, and self-condemna- 
tion, is the sTiand point of safety and immortal hope, 
is the escape from the oppression of guilt and the 
fear of death ! 

19. Uniform use of peculiar phrases in the puJpit 
not desirable. — Such common words as have acquii'ed 
an affected cast in theolosfical use. micjht srive place 
to the other common words which express the ideas 
in a plain and unaffected manner ; and the phrases 
formed of common words uncouthly combined may 
be dismissed. Many peculiar and antique words 
might be exchanged for other single words, of equiv- 
alent signification, and in general use. And the small 
number of peculiar terms acknowledg^ed and estab- 
lished as of pemianent use and necessity, micrht, even 
separately from the consideration of modifying: the 
diction, be often, with advantage to the explicit dec- 
laration and clear comprehension of Christian truth, 
made to give place to a fuller expi-ession, in a num- 
ber of common words, of those ideas of which these 
peculiar terms ai^ the single sisns. 

20. Existence and mirtistry of angels. — Xo fact be- 
yond the limits of our world is moi^e pix)minent in 
the declai^ations of the Bible, than the existence of a 
high order of intelligences denominated ans^els. The 
equivocal and the lower application of the term in a 
number of instances can deduct nothinar from the 
palpable evidence of the fact. But who and what 
are an^ls ? The effect of an assemblage of pas- 
sages relating to them in the Bible, the descriptions, 
narratives, and allusions, would seem to give an idea 
■widely different from that of stationary residents in 
particular parts of the creation — an id«^a, rather, of 
pei-petual ministerial agency, in a divemfied distri- 
bution of appointments, many of them occasional and 



118 Foster's thoughts. 

temporary, in the fulfilment of whicli numbers of 
them visit or sojourn in this world. 

21. Rank and sphere of angels. — If we take our 
conjecture of the intellectual magnitude, and the 
probable excursive powers of the highest of the 
created beings, from the consideration of the infinite 
power and beneficence of the Creator, and of what 
it is rationally probable that such a Being would 
create in the nature of mental existences, to admire, 
adore, and serve him, we shall be warranted to im- 
agine beings to whom it may be possible exultingly 
to leave sunbeams far behind them in the rapidity 
of their career, from systems to systems still beyond. 
And if we add to the account the equal probability 
of a perpetual augmentation of their powers in a ratio 
correspondent to a magnitude already so stupendous, 
and crown it with the idea of an indefatigable exer- 
tion of those powers in discovery and contemplation 
of the Creator's manifestations through everlasting 
ages — there will then be required a universe to which 
all that the telescope has descried is but as an atom ; 
a universe of which it shall not be within the possi- 
hilities of any intelligence less than the Infinite to 
know — 

" Where rears the terminating pillar high 
Its extraraundane head." 

22. Kingdom of God on earth and in heaven con- 
nected hy vital sympathies. — The kingdom of God 
on earth is in real and vital connexion with his king- 
dom in heaven ! So that there is — shall we say it — 
a sympathy between them; so that where a saint is 
smitten on earth, there is, as it were, a sensation con- 
veyed to the upper sky. The Lord of saints and an- 
gels says, " Saul, why persecutest thou me ?" a strange 
expression of the union of the king of glory, and his 
humble mortal friends. 

23. Inefficiency of mere means. — These means are 
indeed of divine appointment, and to a certain extent 



DOCTRINES OF CHRISTIANITY. 119 

are accompanied by a special divine agency. But 
how far this agency accompanies them is seen in the 
measure of their success. Where that stands ar- 
rested, the fact itself is the proof that the superior 
operation does not go furttier with these means. 
There it stops, and leaves them to accomplish, if they 
can, what remains. And oh, what remains ] If the 
general transformation of mankind into such persons 
as could be justly deemed true disciples of Christ, 
were regarded as the object of his religion, how 
mystei'iously small a part of that object has this di- 
vine agency ever yet been exerted to accomplish ! 
And then, the awful and immense remainder evinces 
the inexpressible imbecility of the means, when left 

to be applied as a mere human administration 

Probably each religious teacher can recollect, besides 
his general experience, very particular instances, in 
which he has set himself to exert the utmost force 
of his mind, in reasoning, illustration, and serious ap- 
peal, to impress some one important idea, on some 
one class of persons to whom it was most specifically 
applicable ; and has perceived the plainest indica- 
tions, both at the instant and immediately after, that 
it was an attempt of the same kind as that of demol- 
ishing a tower by attacking it with pebbles. Nor do 
I need to observe how generally, if a momentary im- 
pression is made, it is forgotten the following hour. 

24. Melancholy musings in the direction oj" fatal- 
ism. — One seems to see all how it is to he, as to one's 
friends, as to one's self. Unfortunate habits have 
been formed, and threaten* to reign till death. In- 
struction, truth, just reach the heart to fall ineffica- 
cious. One augurs the sequel from the first part; 
as in a commonplace novel, one can see from the 
first chapter what is to happen forward to the close. 

2^. In its fortification of depraved dispositions and 
circumstances, the soul defies any assault of mere hu- 
man power — Surely the human mind, quenched as 



120 poster's thoughts. 

it is in a body, with all that body's sensati<ins, is not 
a thing to be worked upon by the preseritation of 
truth ! How little, in general, it thinks or cares about 
the whole displayed firmament of truth, with all its 
constellations. No ! the case of mankind is desper- 
ate, unless a continual miracle intei-pose. 

26. Vain confidence in human agency. — If'what they 
deem the cause of truth and justice advances with a 
splendid front of distinguished names of legislators, 
or patriots, or military heroes, it must then and must 
therefore triumph ; nothing can withstand such tal- 
ents, accompanied by the zeal of so many faithful 
adherents. If these shining insects of fame are 
crushed, or sink into the despicable reptiles of cor- 
ruption, alas, then, for the cause of truth and justice ! 

27. Effects disproportionate to any known order 
of means, may he necessary to the universal triumph oj 
the gospel. — Perhaps it is not improbable, that the 
grand moral improvements of the future age may be 
accomplished in a manner that shall leave nothing to 
man but humility and grateful adoration. His pride 
so obstinately ascribes to himself whatever good is 
effected on the globe, that perhaps the Deity will 
evince his own interposition, by events as evidently 
independent of human power as the rising of the sun. 
It may be that some of them may take place in a 
manner but little connected even with human opera- 
tion. Or if the activity of men shall be employed as 
the means of producing all of them, there will proba- 
bly be as palpable a disproportion between the instru- 
ments and the events, as there was between the rod 
of Moses and the stupendous phenomena which fol- 
lowed its being stretched forth. 

28. Triumph of the truth through the gospel. — I 
have the most confident faith that the empire of truth, 
advancing under a far mightier agency than mere 
philosophic inquiry, is appointed to irradiate the lat- 
ter ages of a dark and troubled world ; and, on the 



DOCTRINES OF CHRISTIANITY. 121 

strength of prophetic intimations, I anticipate its 
coming sooner, by at least a thousand centuries, than 
a disciple of that philosophy which rejects revelation, 
as the first proud step toward the improvement of 
the world, is warranted, by a view of the past and 
present state of mankind, to predict. 

29. Inadequate view of the social application of 
Christianity. — Christianity is to be honored some- 
what after the same manner as the Lama of Thibet. 
It is to stay in its temple, to have the proprieties of 
homage duly preserved within its precincts, but to be 
exempted (in reverence of its sanctity) from all cog- 
nizance of great public affairs, even in the points 
where they most interfere with or involve its inter- 
ests. It could show, perhaps, in what manner the 
administration of those affairs injures these interests; 
but it would degrade its sacred character by talking 
of any such matter. But Christianity must have 
leave to decline the sinister compliment of such pre- 
tended anxiety to preserve it immaculate. As to its 
sacred character, it can venture that, on the strength 
of its intrinsic quality and of its own guardianship, 
while, regardless of the limits thus attempted in mock 
reverence to be prescribed, it steps in a censorial 
capacity on what will be called a political ground, 
so far as to take account of what concern has been 
shown, or what means have been left disposable, for 
operations to promote the grand essentials of human 
welfare, by that public system which has grasped and 
expended the strength of the community. 

30. Amenability of statesmen. — So long as men are 
pressing as urgently into the avenues of place and 
power, as ever the genteel rabble of the metropolis 
have pushed and crowded into the playhouse to see 
the new actor, and so long as a most violent conflict 
is maintained between those who are in power and 
those who want to supplant them, we think statesmen 
form by eminence the class of persons to whose char 

11 



122 poster's thoughts. 

acters both the contemporary examiner and the his- 
torian are not only authorized, but in duty bound, to 
administer justice in its utmost rigor, without one par- 
ticle of extenuation. . . , They have stronger induce- 
ments, arising from their situation, than other men, 
to be solicitous for the rectitude of their conduct; 
their station has the utmost advantage for command- 
ing the assistance of whatever illumination a country 
contains ; they see, on the large scale, the effect of 
all the grand principles of action ; they make laws 
for the rest of mankind, and they direct the execu- 
tion of justice. If the eteiTial laws of morality are 
to be applied with a soft and lenient hand in the trial 
and judgment of such an order of men, it will not be 
worth while to apply them at all to the subordinate 
classes of mankind; as a morality that exacts but lit- 
tle, where the means and tlie responsibility are the 
greatest, would betray itself to contempt by pre- 
tending to sit in solemn judgment on the humbler 
subjects of its authority. The laws of morality 
should operate, like those of Nature, in the most 
palpable manner on the largest substances. 

31. Te7idenci/ to reform. — At all events, it is inex- 
pressibly gratifying, on the ground of religion, phil- 
anthropy, and all views of improvement, to observe 
the prominent characteristic of our times ; a mohility^ 
a tendency to alteration, a shaking, and cracking, 
and breaking up of the old condition of notions and 
things ; an exploding of the principle, that things are 
to be maintained because they are ancient and estab- 
lished. Even that venerable humbug called " our 
2idxmYd}AG constitution ' hii^ suffered woful assault and 
battery by this recent transaction. This thing, the 
*' constitution," has been commonly regarded, and 
talked, and written of (and was so talked of by the 
opposition in the late debates), as if it were some- 
thing almost of divine origin, as if it had been deliv- 
ered like the law from the mount, as a thing perfect, 



DOCTRINES OF CHRISTIANITY. 123 

peiTnaTient, sacred, and inviolable. But now we 
have it practically shown, that one of its corners may 
be dt^molished witho'Ut ceremony (Holy Temple 
though it has been accounted), when the benefit of 
the community requires an innovation ; and there- 
fore so may any other corner or portion of it, when 
the same cause shall demand. 

32. The elevation of the race possible through wise 
institutions and statesmen. — Every day struck with 
the wretched and barbarous appearance, and the 
coarse manners of the populace. (This was, I be- 
lieve, in Lancashire.) How most astonishing that 
the Creator should have placed so many millions of 
the creatures he has endowed with noble faculties 
(or the seeds of them), in situations where these fac- 
ulties and the whole being are inevitably debased ! 
Wonder again what really could be done by political 
institutions managed by a Bonaparte in morals. I 
can not, will not, believe that all must necessarily 
he thus. 

33. Progressive amelioration of the condition of the 
race through the ajyplications of Christianity. — Have 
been a thousand times struck, and very forcibly this 
morning, with the miserable, degraded, and almost 
revolting appearance, of the visages, both in features 
and expression, of the lowest rank of the poor, es- 
pecially when old. Oh, how little is made of the hu- 
man species in dignity, refinement, knowledge, and 
happiness, in comparison with what they might be- 
come, under the influence of good institutions — of 
education — of religion, and a state of society which 
should easily secure a competence without so much 
labor! 

34. Timid conservatism. — I have heard a good ma- 
ny of them talk of the subject ; and what they say is, 
that the " Review" cZare* nothing; that its highest 
ambition seems to be to do no harm ; that it takes the 
style of a puritan divine in some instances where that 



124 poster's thoughts. 

of Voltaire would be better; that it is too anxious to 
preserve a quiet impunity under the wings of ortho- 
doxy and loyalty ; that it is like a dog that has been 
whipped, and therefore but just ventures to growl, 
and then runs away. 

35. Jurisdiction of civil law may he restricted hy 
conscience. — An opponent maintained that I ought to 
contribute to the execution of every law of the state 
I live in, even though I disapprove some of those 
laws in my private judgment. Denied. How can 
such obligation come ? It is confessed, in the first 
instance, that in general my own judgment and con- 
science form the supreme law. Then, if one man as- 
sumes to interfere with the dictates of my own mind, 
and enjoins me a course of action opposite to my con- 
victions, I spurn the assumption. But so I do like- 
wise if two men thus dictate in opposition to my moral 
sense. If three men do this, I do still the same. If 
five hundred, if a thousand, if ten thousand, I still do 
the same, and deem that duty binds me to do so. I 
ask these, " What is this thing you call a state 1 
what is that moral authority assumed by it over my 
conscience, if it merely consists of these same men 
whom individually, and in the accumulation of an 
indefinite number, I have already refused to obey?" 

36. Individual anticipating and embracing social 
reform. — The mind of a reflective man ought, in re- 
spect of changes, to be beforehand with the world — 
to have first achieved each important reform within 
itself, and to be able to say to other men, " Follow 
me!" 

37. Ceremonial of ordination liahle to he unduly 
magnified among dissenters. — In saying all this, I 
beg you not to take me as if I were making any very 
grave matter of the thing — as if I fancied this little 
rag of hierarchy infected with the plague, and capable 
of infusing some mighty mischief into our religious 
constitution. I merely think it would better comport 



DOCTRINES OF CHRISTIANITY. 125 

with good sense, and with religious simplicity as the 
dissenters' profession, to abandon such a ceremonial. 

38. Church independence , distinguished from nation- 
al estahlishments. — The dissenters' system (as far as 
they can have anything that can be so named) is sim- 
ply to teach and preach religion to such as choose 
to be taught, forming voluntary societies, and in all 
ways and senses supporting themselves, in point of 
expenses and everything else. ... It is the very man- 
ner in which Christianity was originally propagated 
in the world. How else should or can it be propa- 
gated ? It is an immensely difterent thing to have a 
secular establishment, shaped, richly endowed, and 
supported by the state — a profane and profligate king 
acknowledged as head of this church, a power in the 
government (often a most irreligious set of men) to 
decree the doctrines and observances of religion — a 
set of wealthly and lordly archbishops and bishops — 
the institution — constantly made an engine of state 
— furnished with a clergy to whom personal religion 
is no prerequisite, and many of them signing articles 
which they do not believe — constituted in a way to 
produce ambition, sycophancy to power, and arro- 
gance toward the people — to say not a word of the 
vast and horrid history of persecution, the principle 
of which is inherent in such an invention, and which 
has made the hierarchy about the blackest spectacle 
in the retrospect of the Christian era. 

39. Mai organization of national estahlishments evin- 
ced hy failure to accomplish their proposed ends. — If 
the practical working of an institution be generally, 
predominantly, through successive ages and all the 
change of times and circumstances, renegade from 
the primary intention, this would seem to betray that 
there must be, in the very construction itself essen- 
tially, a strong propensity and aptitude to corruption ; 
that a o-ood desio-n has been committed to the action 
of a wrong machinery for making it effective ; that 

11* 



^ 



126 * Foster's thoughts. 

the instrument intended for the use^of a good spirit, 
is found commodiously fitted to the hand of a darker 
agent. 

I am not, you will observe, expressing any opinion 
on the abstract question of the necessity or possible 
advantage of a religious establishment, but comment- 
ing on the actual church establishment of this coun- 
try. Now, then, I would say to you, with deference, 
take an impartial view of the English church, through 
a duration of nearly two centuries, and at the present 
time. You well know that, with all its amplitude of 
powers and means — its many thousands of consecra- 
ted teachers, of all degrees — its occupancy of the 
whole country — its prescriptive hold on the people's 
veneration — its learning, its emoluments, and its in- 
timate connexion with all that was powerful in the 
state — it did, through successive generations, leave 
the bulk of the population, for whose spiritual bene- 
fit it was appointed, in the profoundest ignorance of 
what you consider as the only genuine Christianity. 

40. Adequate reformation of a national cliurcli es 
tahlisJiment imjpossihle. — As an economical thing, a 
trade and money concern, it may be plentifully mend- 
ed if the axe and saw, and carpenter's rule, be reso- 
lutely applied (which I do not expect) ; but as an eccle- 
siastical institution, an institution for religion, it is not 
worth reforming; indeed, can not be ref(jrmed. Think 
of making the clergy — such a clergy as the ref(n'm- 
project declares them to be — think of making them 
pious, zealous, spiritual, apostolic, hy act of parlia- 
ment ! There is, for example, the^candalous amount 
of non-resfdence ; this is to be corrected with a strong 
hand ; the clergy shall be compelled to reside : what 
clergy shall be so compelled % why, the very men 
whose non-residence proved they do not care about 
the spiritual welfare of the people ; but only force 
these same men, by a law, sadly against their will, 
as the very terms imply, and then they will instantly 



DOCTRINES OF CHRISTIANITY. 127 

become piaus, faithful, affectionate pastors — an wv^ 
speakahle hlcssing to the people of every parish ! They 
will apply themselves, with the utmost alacrity and 
assiduity, to their preaching, praying, visiting the 
sick, &c., at the very time that they are grumbling 
and cursing at not being any longer allowed to prom- 
enade about Brigrhton or Cheltenham. The most ri- 
diculous absurdity comes of that one grand corrup- 
tion of Christianity — the state pretending to make 
religious churches and Christian teachers. 

41. Certainty of the prevalence of the simpler and 
true order of Christianity. — And dissent, you may 
be sure, will continue to extend, in whatever propor- 
tion true religion and free-thinking shall do so, to 
the ultimate abolition of that anti-Christian nuisance, 
the established church. 

42. Efficiency of independency. — I have heard it 
alleged, that however it might fare with the people 
in the towns and the districts, thickly inhabited, the 
rural tracts, with a scanty population, would be left 
in a total destitution of religious advantages. Did 
the foretellers of this consequence ever traverse any 
considerable part of Wales, where they would see an 
almost endless succession of meeting-houses, in tracts 
where a few humble-looking habitations, scattered 
over a wide neighborhood, give immediate evidence 
of a thin population and the absence of wealth ] And, 
if I am not much misinformed, such proofs of the pro- 
ductive activity of the " dissenting interest," as it is 
called, have begun to appear in scores, or rather hun- 
dreds, of the thinly-inhabited districts of England; a 
representation confirmed by the frequent complaints 
of clergymen in such localities, that their parishes are 
becoming deformed by such spectacles — "nuisances,'* 
in the language of some of them ; "schism-shops" is 
the denomination I have oftenest heard. The means 
for raising these edifices have been contributed by 
the liberality of dissenting communities at a distance, 



128 Foster's thoughts. 

for the most part, from the places themselves. And, 
according to my information, the religious services, 
in many of them, are kept up gratuitously, in con- 
sideration of the poverty of the rural attendants, by 
extra labors of ministers in the nearest situations, as- 
sisted by zealous and intelligent religious laymen, 
possessing and cultivating a faculty for public speak- 

43. Inefficiency of national cJiurch estahhshmcnts. 
— Dissent, as argued and practised by the whole 
school of our most venerated teachers and examples, 
has been founded on the plain principle that making 
religion a part of the state, is anti-Christian in theory 
and noxious in practice. With consenting voice they 
vv^ould have denied any one to he a dissenter who did 
not hold this doctrine, and desire, in obvious consis- 
tency, the abolition of all secular religious establish- 
ments. Latterly, all this seems to have been forgot- 
ten — very much from the want of instruction, and 
consequent want of thought, about the real nature 
and reason of dissent. But I am of the old school — 
at the same time not caring very much how little the 
people understand about the theory of the matter, 
provided religion and practical dissent be making 
progress. The fundamental principle of dissent is, 
that the relimon of Chiist oug-ht to be left to make 
its way among mankind in the greatest possible sim- 
plicity, by its truth and excellence; and through the 
labors of sincere and pious advocates, under the pre- 
siding care of its great Author; and that it can not, 
without fatal injury to that pure simplicity, that charac- 
ter of being: a " kino^dom not of this world," be taken 
into the schemes and political arrangements of mon- 
archs and statesmen, and implicated inseparably with 
all the secular interests, intrigues, and passions. It 
is self-evident it must thus become a sharer in state 
corruptions, an engine of state acted on, and in its 
turn acting with, every bad influence belonging so 



DOCTRINES OF CHRISTIANITY. 129 

almost universally to courts, governments, and ambi- 
tious parties of worldly men. It might beforehand 
be pronounced infallibly, that this unhallowed com- 
bination must result in the debasement of religion, 
and in mischief to the best interests of mankind. Bat 
from this presumption a priori, turn to the matter of 
fact, as exhibited through the long course of the Chris- 
tian era. I have latterly been looking a little into ec- 
clesiastical history, at different periods ; and should, 
from what I have seen there, have acquired, bad it 
been possible, an augmented intensity of detestation 
of hierarchies and secular establishments of religion. 
There is the whole vast and direful plague of the 
'popish hierarchy. But placing that out of view, 
look at our own protestant estahlishinent. Whatw^as 
its spirit and influence during the long period of the 
sufferings of the puritans ] What was its spirit even 
in the time of Queen Anne % Then follow it down 
through a subsequent century. What did it do for 
the people of England 1 There was one wide, settled 
Egyptian darkness ; the blind leading the blind, all 
but universally ; an utter estrangement from genuine 
Christianity ; ten thousand Christian ministers mis- 
leading the people in respect to religious notions, and 
a vast proportion of them setting them a bad practi- 
cal example. When at length something of the true 
light began to dawn — when Whitefield and Wesley 
came forth — who were their most virulent opposers, 
even instigating and abetting the miserable people to 
riot, fury, and violence, against them ] The estab- 
lished clergy. At a later time, who were the most con- 
stant systematic opposers of an improved education of 
the common people ? The estahlished clergy. Who 
frustrated, so lately. Brougham's national plan, for 
this object ? The clergy, who insisted that they should 
have a monopoly of the power in its management. 
Who formed the main mass of the opposition to the 
Bible Society for so many years 1 Did one single dis- 



130 

senter so act 1 No ; the clergy. Who, lately, did all 
they could, by open opposition or low intrigue, to 
fi'ustrate the valuable project for education in our 
own city ] The clergy. Who were the most gener- 
ally hostile to the catholic emancipation, undeterred 
by the prospect of prolonged tumult, and ultimate 
civil war, ravage, and desolation, in Ireland 1 The 
clergy. What is, at this very hour, the most fatal and 
withering blight on the interests and hopes of the 
prolestant religion in that country? The estahlisJied 
church. 

44. Indictment against the national estahlishment. 
— Impossihility of its reform. — This slight series 
of notices affords but a faint and meager hint of the 
large and awful indictment against the established 
church. And that indictment is, by the whole school 
of the able advocates of dissent on principle, charged 
in this form, namely : that such are the natural effects 
of a secular church estahlishment — not accidental evils 
of an institution fundamentally good. And this should, 
I think, be as evident as any possible instance of 
cause and effect. Consider, what is the patronage of 
the church 1 For one large portion, it is in the hands 
of the state, of the ministry — men most commonly ig- 
norant and careless of religion, and only consuhing 
secular and political interests. It is in the piivate 
hands of great lords and great squires of colleges and 
corporations. No small proportion of it is a matter 
of direct traffic in the market, like farms or any other 
commodity. So many thousand pounds for a " cure 
of souls ./" Consider, again, that young men (a vast 
majority of those who enter the church) enter as on 
a profession or trade, and a thing which places them 
on a genteel footing in society. The church is the 
grand receptacle, too, for secondary branches of the 
upper sort of families. Many latterly are from the 
army and navy. Consider, that personal piety is 
not, nor by the nature of the institution can be, any 



DOCTRINES OF CHRISTIANITY. 131 

indispensable preTequisite. Who ot what is there to 
require any such thing, or to judge of any such thing 1 
The candidate passes through a few formahties, and 
it is done. And if the parishioners receive a man 
who is most evidently destitute of any such qualifica- 
tion — receive him as their instructor, consoler, and 
example — they have no remedy. They must be con- 
tent; they can not remove him; and the church, and 
even the evangelical clergy, censure them if they pre- 
sume to go to hear instead a pious and sensible 
preacher in a meeting-house in their neighborhood. 
We affirm, then, that this fearful mass and variety of 
evil consistently, and for the main part necessarily, 
result from the very nature of an established church ; 
and are not accidental and separable : and that there- 
fore the thing is radically and fundamentally bad, and 
pernicious to religion. If one hears talk of correct- 
ing it, making it a good thing by " reform" — one in- 
stantly says, ^' How correct it? Can you make kings, 
ministers of state, lord chancellors, to become pious 
and evangelical men 1 Can you convert the whole 
set of patrons — lords, baronets, squires, corporations 1 
Can you work such a miracle in Oxford and Cam- 
bridge, that they shall fit' out no young gents for the 
church, but such as give proofs of personal piety ; or 
make the bishops such overseers that they shall allow 
none to go into the fold but such as bear the evident 
qualifications for the shepherds of the flock 1 Can 
you secure that, when advowsons are advertised for 
sale, none but religious men shall buy or bid for 
them ]" Even if all this were not essentially and 
flagrantly impossible — if it miglit be brought about 
some time — I would say, " How long, meanwhile, are 
the people, myriads and millions of them, to be left 
to be misled in the most momentous of their inter- 
ests by multitudes of authorized teachers, who teach 
them not the gospel ? How many of these multi- 
tudes and myriads can we cqntentedly resign to live 



Jo;i FOSTERS THOUGHTS. * 

and die under the delusion that a little middling" mo- 
rality (honesty chiefly), with the aid of the Chiistian- 
izing sprinkle of water, the confiiTnation, and the 
talismanic sacrament at last, will carry them to heav- 
en 1" There is, besides, something strange and ra- 
ther ludicrous in the notion of correcting what is it- 
self appointed to be, and assumes to be, the grand, 
corrector. There is a class of persons highly author- 
ized, ordained, and officially appointed, to instruct, 
illuminate, and reform, the community; the commu- 
nity, wiser than their teachers, are to pity them, in- 
struct them, get them reformed, and then go to tlierr^ 
for *' instruction and correction in righteousness !" 
A curious round-about process, even if it were prac- 
ticable. 

45. Cavils at the tardy success of missions in In- 
dia. — Do they imagine that Mr. Carey, for instance, 
landed in India with the notion that all who came to 
worship the Ganges, or to burn their mothers or ex- 
pose their children on its banks, one season, were to 
come there, the next, to be baptized I Or that the 
want of moonlight the half of each month would be 
supplied by the light of Hindoo temples, set on fire 
over the heads of their gods by the recent worship- 
pers all through Hindostan % 

46. Indiscriminate eulogy over the dead, in pre- 
scrihed service. — It is obvious how powerful the de- 
praving influence is likely to be on other men, who 
have not the information, the convictions, or the re- 
sponsibility, implied and involved in the sacred pro- 
fession, and who are perhaps half-vicious and half- 
skeptical already, if that influence is so strong as to 
make one most learned Christian divine, in a work 
expected and intended to go drwn to a future age, 
confidently dismiss to those abodes of the blessed 
which Christianity only assures its disciples, the per- 
son whom he has just confipssed (we can not honest- 



* 



DOCTRINES OP CHRISTIANITY. 133 

ly interpret the passage in any other sense) to be 
not a believer in the truth of that religion. 

47. In national esiablis/unents, subserviency often 
preferred to talents and piety. — The archbishop could 
easily tolerate his clergy in being ignorant, careless, 
and profligate, provided they punctiliously observed 
all the prescribed ceremonies ; w^hile he could ap- 
plaud himself for directing the vengeance of the star- 
chamber against the most learned, pious, and zealous 
preachei-s, that conscientiously declined some part 
of the ceremonial conformity. He chose rather that 
the people should not be instructed in religion at all, 
than be taught it by even the most excellent minis- 
ters, who could not acknowledge a particular ges- 
ture, or robe, or form of words, as an essential part 
of it. Is the established church infallible while its 
members are unable to agree as to the purport of its 
articles, or to the extent of the obligation under 
which they are to be subscribed, and are indefinitely 
divided and opposed in their opinions, forming a po- 
litical compact, for a temporal advantage, of religious 
parties who are respectively schismatics in each oth- 
er's estimation 1 If the infallibility of such a church, 
or indeed of any church, is an absurdity too gross for 
even this man to advance, where is the sense or de- 
cency of railing against sectaries % If the church 
may be wrong, the sectaries, or some of them, may 
be right ; the authority for imputing error is perfect- 
ly equal on either side, and is no other than freedom 
of individual judgment, a freedom evidently not to be 
contravened but by demonstrated infallibity or tho 
vilest tyranny. 

48. Romanism characterized. — We can imagine a 
protestant falling into communication with a man 
like Fenelon — charmed with such piety and intelli- 
gence — carried by this feeling back into the popish 
church ; no comprehensive view taken of the real 
character and operations of that church ; no account 

12 



134 poster's thoughts. 

taken of its essential connexion with secularity and 
ambition — of its general hostility to true religion — 
of the prevailing worthlessness of its priesthood — 
of its wicked assumptions, maxims, and impostures 
— of its infernal persecutions ; and of all this being 
the natural result of its veiy constitution. 

49. Roinanism lias symbolized with heathenism. — 
As the hostility of heathenism, in the direct endeavors 
to extirpate the Christian religion, became evident- 
ly hopeless, in the nations within the Roman empire, 
there was a grand change of the policy of evil ; and 
all manner of reprobate things, heathenism itself 
among them, rushed as by general conspiracy into 
treacherous conjunction with Christianity, retaining 
their own quality under the sanction of its name, and 
by a rapid process reducing it to surrender almost 
everything distinctive of it but that dishonored 
name : and all this under protection of the " gross 
darkness covering the people." 

50. In Romanism forms have superseded the spirit 
of Chrisiianiti/. — In this latency of the sacred au- 
thorities, withdrawn from all communication with the 
human understanding, there were retained still many 
of the terms and names belonging to religion. They 
remained, but they remained only such as they cauld 
be when the departing spirit of that religion was 
leaving them void of their import and solemnity, and 
so rendered applicable to purposes of deception and 
mischief. They were as holy vessels, in which the 
original contents might, as they were escaping, be 
clandestinely replaced by the most malignant prep- 
8 "ations. 

51. Absurdity of pretended hereditary holiness. — 
In some instances, an assumption of superior holiness 
has been made upon the ground of belonging to a 
certain division, or class, of mankind ; a class having 
Its distinction in the circumstance of descent and na- 
tivity, or, in some artificial constitution of society 



DOCTRINES OF CHRISTIANITY. 135 

Thus the ancient Jews — in virtue merely of being 
Jews. Imagine the worst Jew comparing himself 
with Aristides, Phocion, or Socrates. The Bramins, 
in virtue of a pretended pre-eminently holy descent ; 
an emanation from the head of their creating god. 
In popish countries, the numerous ecclesiastical class. 
Something of this even in protestant England, with- 
in a period not altogether gone beyond remembrance. 
In these instances there has been an assumption of 
holiness independently of individual personal charac- 
ter. Think of such things as here recounted ! What 
an infamy to perverted human reason, that anything 
which might leave the individual evidently had, in 
heart and life, could yet be taken as constituting him 
the reverse of bad, that is, holy ! An absurdity par- 
allel to transubstantiation. 

52. Formalism resorted to to ease conscience. — A 
great many people of gayety, rank, and fashion, have 
occasionally a feeling that a little easy quantity of re- 
ligion would be a good thing ; because it is too true, 
after all, that we can not be staying in this world al- 
ways, and when one goes out of it, why, there may 
be some hardish matters to settle in the other place. 
The prayer-book of a Sunday is a good deal to be 
sure toward making all safe, but then it is really so 
tiresome; for penance it is very well, but to say one 
likes it, one can not for the life of one. If there were 
some tolerable religious thing that one could read 
now and then without trouble, and think it about 
half as ple-asant as a game of cards, it would be com- 
fortable. 

53. flummery and mimicry of Romanism. — It 
would be the farthest thing in the world from his 
thoughts in beholding the pageants, the tricks, and 
grimaces, which would meet his view in a pojDish 
country, that these were exhibited as parts and ap- 
pointments of Christianity. Some of them would 
appear a bad imitation of the opera, and others an 



136 poster's thoughts. 

humble nval of the puppet-show ; the only wonder 
being how any human creatures could perform such 
ridiculous mummeries and antics with such gi'avity 
of face. 

54. Interested apologists for Romanism. — They 
will have it that popery, that infernal pest, is now 
become (if it ever was otherwise) a very tolerably 
good and harmless thing — no intolerance or malignity 
about it now — ^liberalized by the illuminated age — 
the popish priests the worthiest, most amiable, most 
useful of men. Nay, popery is just as good as any 
other religion, except some small preference for our 
"national establishment." Nothing so impertinent, 
nothing so much to be deprecated and condemned, 
«as the idle and mischievous fanaticism of attempting 
to convert papists to protestantism. 

55. Roinanism unchangeable. — Does any sensible 
man honestly doubt whether popery be intrinsically 
of the very same spirit that it ever was 1 Does any 
mortal doubt, whether if it were ever to regain an 
ascendency of power, an uncontrolled dominion in 
this country, it would reveal the fiend, and again 
revel in persecution 1 When did ever the Romish 
church disavow, in the face of the world, any of its 
former principles, revoke any of its odious decrees, 
or even censure any of the execrable abominations, 
the burnings, the tortures, the massacres, the im- 
postures, perpetrated under its authority ? 

56. Ascendency of Romanism impossible. — What! 
popery attain to an over-awing power, in spite of the 
rapidly augmenting knowledge and intelligence of 
the people — the almost miraculous diffusion of the 
Bible — the spirit of license, the fearless discussion 
of all subjects — the extension of religion, and of dis- 
sent from all hierarchies — with the settled deep, and 
general prejudice against popery into the bargain — 
and the wealth, power, rank, and influence, nine 
tenth parts of them, on the side of protestantism ? 



DUTIES OP CHRISTIANITY. 137 



CHAPTER VI. 

VIEWS AND ILLUSTRATIONS OF THE OBLIGATIONS AND 
DUTIES OF CHRISTIANITY. 

1. Indifference to the great moral conflict waging 
in the world, unreasonable. — Alas for the state of 
the senses, of the faculties of apprehension, in those 
minds that have so little cognizance of a most fear- 
ful reality which exists on every side, and presses 
upon them ! How strange it is to see men in pos- 
session of a quick and vigilant faculty for perceiv- 
ing everything that can approach them in hostility, 
except that nearest, deadliest, and mightiest ene- 
my of all, moral evil ! It is a spectacle of 

darker character than that which would have been 
presented by opposed armed parties or legions, gal- 
lantly maintaining battle on the yet uncovered space 
of gi'ound, while the universal flood was rising. 

2. Apathy toward the formidahlc sivay of moral 
evils. — The friends of religion seem to have regarded 
those great maladies of the moral world, the delu- 
sions and abominations of paganism, with a sort of 
submissive awe, as if, almost, they had established a 
prescriptive right to the place they have held so long ; 
or as if they were part of an unchangeable, uncon- 
trollable, order of Nature, like the noxious climates 
of certain portions of the globe, and the liableness in 
others to the terrors of earthquake. 

3. Divine sovereignty falsely pleaded against ohli- 
gation. — If that Being whose power is almighty has 
willed to peiTuit on earth the protracted existence m 

12* 



138 poster's thoughts. 

opposition to him of this enormous evil, why are we 
called upon to vex and exhaust ourselves in a petty 
w^arfare against it ? — why any more than to attc inpt 
the extinction of a volcano 1 If it were his will that 
it should be overthrown, we should soon, without 
having quitted our places and our quiet, in any offen- 
sive movement toward it, feel the earthquake of its 
mighty catastrophe ; and if such is not his will, then 
we should be plainly putting ourselves in the predic- 
ament of willinsf somethino: which he does not will, 
'and making exertions which must infallibly prove 
abortive. 

4. Indolence operating to repress sense of ohliga- 
tions. — Feelings of indolence, combined with ideas 
of the sovereignty of God, will form a state of mind 
prolific of such reflections as these : " Of what con- 
sequence can be the trivial efforts of such insignifi- 
cant creatures, as co-operating or not with the energy 
of an Almighty Power] What signify, in a great 
process of Nature, some few raindrops or dewdrops 
the more or the less ? What are we, to be talking, 
in strains of idle pomp, of converting the people of 
half a world % How reduced to contempt, how van- 
ishing from perception, will be the effects of all our 
petty toils, when mightier powers shall come into ac- 
tion ; as the footsteps of insects and birds are effaced 
and lost under the trample of elephants ! Were it 
not even temerity to affect to take the course where 
the chariot of Omnipotence is to drive ; as if we would 
intrude to share the achievements proper to a God, 
or fancy that something magnificent which he has to 
do, will not be done unless we are there ? 

5. Delay for more manifest tokens of duty. — If 
there be still some cautious Christians who are re- 
luctant to let it grow obsolete, we might ask them 
whether they have exactly figured in their minds in 
what manner the expected grand process is to begin, 
or what appearances they could accept as signs that 



% 



DUTIES OP CHRISTIANITY. 139 

the period is come when their efforts would not be 
like a vain attempt to constrain the fulfilment of a 
Divine purpose before its appointed time. Are there 
to be extraordinary meteors, significantly passing east- 
ward as they vanish ? Are they to hear that the tem- 
ples of Seeva are sunk suddenly in ruins at the stroke 
of thunder? Or, still more of prodigy, are all the 
chief statesmen, and mercantile men, and military 
men, especially concerned in the affairs of the East, 
to become with one accord inspired with a fervent 
zeal for the Christianizing of Asia, perhaps impelled 
literally to a spiritual crusade against Hindoo idola- 
try ? Why should they not accept as the required 
signs, the circumstances that have attended thus far 
this Christian enterprise in India ? 

6. Doctrine of decrees available to tlie liighest 
Christian zeal and activity. — As the principle of 
destruction is to be conveyed through the means of 
human agents, who so likely to be employed, they 
said, as we that are already on fire to destroy ? Be- 
yond all doubt, it is exactly here that we have our 
decreed and unalterable allotment. Exactly here it 
is, that our will and the Supreme Will coalesce to a 
purpose which defies all chance and all created power. 

7. Shrinking from tJie responsibility oj" the servants 
of God. — The great contest against evil, in all its 
modes of invasion of this world (but our reference 
is chiefly to those requiring men's resistance in the 
religious capacity), has been a sei-vice assigned in 
every possible difference of circumstance and propor- 
tion; and some men's shares have involved a violence 
of exertion, or a weight of suffering, which we look 
upon with wonder and almost with terror. We shud- 
der to think of mortals like ourselves having been 
brought into such fearful dilemmas between obedi- 
ence and guilt. We shrink from placing ourselves 
but in imagination under such tests of fidelity to God 
and a good cause. The painful sympathy with those 



140 poster's thoughts. 

ao-ents and sufferers terminates in self-conon-atulation, 
that their allotment of duty has not been ours. The 
tacit sentiment is, I am very glad I can be a good 
man on less severe conditions There is delu- 
sion, if vi^e are permitted to escape from the habitual 
sense of beins:, in the character of the servants of 
God, placed under the duty and necessity of an in- 
tense moral warfare, against powers of evil as real 
and palpable as ever were encountered in the field 

of battle Duties to be performed at the cost of 

suffering oppressive and unmitigated toil, pain, want, 
reproach, loss of liberty and even of life itself, duties 
imposing such a trial of fidelity as confessers and 
martyrs have sustained. 

8. Inefficient conception of spiritual relations. — One 
has fancied sometimes what might have been the ef- 
fect, in the selected instances, if the case had been 
that the Sovereign Creator had appointed but a few 
men, here and there one, to an immortal existence, 
or at least declared it only with respect to them. One 
can not help imagining them to feel, every hour, the 
impression of their sublime and awful predicament ! 
But why — why is it less felt a sublime and solemn 
one, because the rest of our race are in it too ] Does 
not each as a perfectly distinct owe, stand in the whole 
magnitude of the concern, and the responsibility, and 
the danger, as absolutely if there were no other one ? 
How is it less to him than if he thus stood alone ] 
Their losing the happy intei-^-st of eteinity will not 
be, that he shall not have lost it for himself. If he 
shall have lost it, he will feel th^t they have not lost 
it for him. He should therefo:»'<^ now feel that upon 
him is concentrated, even individMally upon him, the 

entire importance of this chief ^concern Bwt 

what a depth of depravity that can thus receive and 
swallow up such masses of alarming truth and fact 
and then be as if all this were nothing ! How sad, 
that for men t5 be awfully wrong, and to be admon- 



DUTIES OF CHRISTIANITY. 141 

islied, and to be aware that they are so, should leave 
them still at ease ! 

9. Stra?7ge ajpatliy of the masses of mankind to re- 
ligious truth. — Think of the movements of the heart, 
in the inhabitants of a great city, during a single day, 
— loving, desiring, hoping, hating, fearing, regretting ! 
"What an infinity of emotions ! What a stupendous 
measure of active vitality ! Now^ consider — to these 
souls are presented among the other objects of inter- 
est, the things most important, desirable, and terrible 
in the universe ; thest things are placed before them, 
and pressed on them, is evidently* and as closely and 
palpably, as reason and revelation can. We know 
what should be the effect of these. We x:an think 
what it should be on any individual whom the eye 
happens to fix upon, known or a stranger. We can 
look on the passing train, or the collected crowd, and 
think what it should be on each, and all. What a 
measure therefore this would be of a good spirit in 
such an assemblasre ! What is the effect on the far 
greater number] There are abundant indications 
to inform you what it is, or rather what it is not. 
And if the case be so, in an enlightened and Chris- 
tian community, what is man ! a rational and immor- 
tal being, involved in a relation the most perfect, vital, 
and inseparable, with all that is most important ; the 
reality of that relation manifested to him, enforced 
upon him ; and yet, he generally is as insensible to it 
almost as a statue of stone is to the objects surround- 
ing it ! But might not the compassion become 
mingled with indignation, when it should be obseived 
how unlike an insensible fig-ure he is toward other 
objects with which his relation is separable and tran- 
sient ? Nevertheless the great interest is still the 
same ; bears all the importance of eternity upon it ; 
remains as that sky above us, with its luminaries and 
its solenjn and infinite depth, whether we look at it 
or not. 



142 poster's thoughts. 

10. Diversified appeals to religious emotion inef- 
fectual. — 1 fix an ardent gnze on Christianity, as- 
suredly the last best gift of Heaven to men ; on Je- 
sus the agent and example of infinite love ; on time 
as it passes away; on perfection as it shines beau- 
teous as heaven, and alas ! as remote ; on my own 
beloved soul which I have injured, and on the un- 
happy multitude of souls around me ; and I ask my- 
self. Why do not my passions burn % Why does not 
zeal arise in mighty wrath, to lash my icy habits in 
pieces, to scourge me from ind »lence into fervid ex- 
ertion, and to trample all me .n sentiments in the 
dust ? At intervals I feel devotion and benevolence 
and a surpassing ardor; but when they are turned 
toward substantial laborious operations, they fly and 
leave me spiritless amid the iron labor, 

11. Special privileges improved. — They should be 
regarded as cultivators regard the imp(jrtant weeks 
of the spring; as mariners regard the blowing of fa- 
vorable winds ; as merchants seize a transient and 
valuable opportunity of gain ; as men, overlabored 
and almost overmatched in warfare, regard a strong 
reinforcement of fresh combatants. 

12. Temporary ehullition of hcnevolent feeling. — 
The course of feeling resembles a listless stream of 
water, which, after being dashed into commotion, by a 
massive substance flung into it, or by its precipitation 
at a rapid, relapses, in the progress of a few fathoms 
and a few momeTits, into its former sluggishness of 
current. 

13. Appeals to gratitude. — Consider! " AVhy am 
I not, at this hour, overwhelmed with distress, in- 
stead of these feelings of delight ? I deserve to be 
so, and many of my fellow-mortals are so, who prob- 
ably deserve it less. Is it not because God is ex- 
ceedingly good to me 1 To constitute this state 
which 1 am now enjoying, how many caies»and gifts 
of that beneficent Father — how many collective rays 



DUTIES OF CHRISTIANITY. 143 

of mercy from that open heaven ! And does my 
heart absorb all, and reflect nothing 1 All this that 
tells me of the Supreme Be'nefactor, does it really 
but make me, or prove me, an atheist ? In vv^hat 
manner — by what means — ^am I expecting ever to 
be reminded of God — ever to be drawn toward him, 
if his goodness has no such effect 1 If my heart has 
absolutely no will to send upward any of its gi-atify- 
ing emotions, as incense to him, wha-t must be its 
condition 1 Is not this a reflection calculated instant- 
ly to chill all this delight ? If, in these pleasurable 
emotions, there is nothing of a nature that admits of 
being sent up in grateful devotion, what estimate 
should I form of my pleasure, my happiness ? Con- 
tent ! delighted ! with a happiness which by its very 
nature estranges me from God !" 

14. Catholic charity evinced. — Then we shall never 
actually see a disposition to discountenance a design 
on account of its originating with an alien sect, rather 
than to favor it for its intrinsic excellence ; nor an 
eager insisting on points of precedence ; nor a sys- 
tematic practice of representing the operations of 
our own sect at their highest amount of ability and 
effect, and those of another at their lowest; nor the- 
studied silence of vexed jealousy, which is thinking 
all the while of what it can not endure to name ; nor 
that labored exaggeration of our magnitude and 
achievements, which most plainly tells what that jeal- 
ousy is thinking of; nor that manner of hearing of 
marked and opportune advantages occurring to un- 
dertakings of another sect which betrays that a story 
of disasters would have been more welcome ; nor un • 
derhand contrivances for assuming the envied merit 
of something which another sect has accomplished 
and never boasted of. 

15. Peculiar faults of moderate men. — There is a 
class of good men naturally formed to be exceeding- 
ly sober, and cautious, and deliberate, and anxious 



144 Foster's thoughts. 

for all Tt may be conceded to these worthy men, 

that the advocates of missions have not always avoid- 
ed extravagance. Especially when under the in- 
fluence of a large assembly, supposed to be animated 
by interests which extend to the happiness of a world, 
they may have been excited to use a language which 
seemed to magnify these interests, and the projects 
in which they were embodied, at the expense of all 

other duties and concerns While, however, 

some concession is thus made to the cautious good 
men, who are more afraid of extravagance than of all 
other errors in designs for promoting religion, they 
must be told, that it would have been an ill-fate for 
Christianity in the world, if Christians of their tem- 
perament could always have held the ascendency in 
projecting its operations. If they would for a moment 
put themselves, in imagination, in the case of being 
contemporary with Wicliff, or with Luther, and of 
being applied to by one of tliese daring spirits for ad- 
vice, we may ask what counsel they can suppose 
themselves to have given. They can not but be in- 
stantly conscious that, though they had been prot- 
estants at heart, their disposition would have been to 
array and magnify the objections and dangers ; to 
dwell in emphatic terms on the inveterate, all-com- 
prehensive, and resistless dominion of the papal 
church, established in every soul and body of the 
people ; on the vigilance and prompt malignity of the 
priests ; and on the insignificance, as to any probable 
effect, of an obscure individual's efforts against an 
immense and marvellously well-organized system of 

imposture and iniquity Ifin those instances such 

counsel had been acted upon as they would have 
given, that zeal which was kindling and destined to 
lay a great part of the mightier Babylon in ashes, 
would have smouldered and expired in a languid, 
listless hope, that tbe Almighty would sometime create 
such a juncture of circumstances as should admit an 



DUTIES OF CHRISTIANITY. 145 

attempt at reformation without a culpable and use- 
less temerity It is the very contrary spirit to 

this of restrictive parsimonious calculation that has 
been the most signally honored ; inasmuch as some 
of the most effectual and of the noblest services 
rendered to God in all time, have begun much more 
in the prompting of zeal to attempt something for 
him as it w^ere at all hazards, than in rigorous esti- 
mates of the probable measure of effect. 

16. Vast results from apparenthj insignijicant cau- 
ses. — The diminutive grows to the large, sparks flame 
into conflagrations, fountains originate mighty streams, 
and most inconsiderable moral agents are made the 
incipients whence trains of agencies and effects, pro- 
ceeding on with continual accession, enlarge into ef- 
fects of immense masrnitude. . . . Much of the actual 
condition of our part of the world consists of a num- 
ber of these grand results of enlarging trains of effects, 
progressive from the smallest beginnings, at various 
distances back in the past. 

17. Aggressive Christianity. — There was once an 
age, when it had been most unfortunate to be a bad 
man ; the good ones were so formidably active and 
courageous. There was a class of men whose pro- 
fession was martial benevolence. They lived but for 
the annihilation of wrongs; to defend innocence; to 
dwell in tempests, that goodness might dwell in peace ; 
to deliver the oppressed and captives, and to dash the 
tyrant down. Wo then to the castles of proud wick- 
edness, to magicians, robbers, giants, dragons ; for the 
wandering heroes vowed their destruction. This fa- 
mous age is gone ! But in every age it has been 
deemed honorable to wage war against the mischiev- 
ous things and mischievous beings that have infested 
the earth. " Gallant and heroic world !" we are in- 
clined to exclaim, while we contemplate the mighty 
resistance made to invading armies, elements, or 
plagues; or the spirited persecution that has been 

13 



1 \G FOSTFR S THOUGHTS. 

carried on against robbers, pirates, monsters, ser- 
pents, and wild beasts. Yes, tigers, wolves, hyenas, 
have been pursued to death. The avenging spirit has 
hunted the timid thief, and even condescended to crush 
each poor reptile that has been deemed offensive. But 
— " The world of fools !" we cry, while we consider 
that SIN, the hideous parent of all evils, and for ever 
multiplying her brood of monsters over the world, is 
quietly, or even complacently, allowed here to inhabit 
and to ravage. Where are the heroes " who resist 
unto blood, striving against sin .?" Should we weep 
or laugh at the foolishness of mankind, childishly 
spending their indignation and force against petty 
evils, and maintaining a fiiendly peace with the fell 
and mighty principle of Destruction 1 It is just as 
if men of professed courage, employed to go and find 
and destroy a tiger or a crocodile that has spread 
alarm or havoc, on being asked at their return, " Have 
you done the deed ?" should reply, " We have not, 
indeed, destroyed the tiger or crocodile, but yet we 
have acted heroically ; we have achieved something 
great : we have killed a wasp !" Or like men en- 
gaged to exterminate a den of murderers, who being 
asked at their return, " Have you accomplished the 
vengeance?" should say, "We have not destroyed 
any of the murderers ; we did not deem it worth 
while to attempt it : but we have lamed oue of their 
dogsr 

18. Christian warfare. — All Christian exhortation 
is in truth a summons to war. 

19. Self-devotion . — I hold myself a sacrifice, a vic- 
tim, consecfrated and offered up on the great altar of 
the kingdom of Christ, as one of the human fruits of 
his kingdom, offered by him, the gieat High-Priest, 
to the God of all. 

20. Expression in an evening prayer. — May we 
consider each night as the tomb of the departed day, 



1 



DUTIES OF CHRISTIANITY. 147 

and, seriously leaning over it, read the inscription 
written by conscience, of its character and exit. 

21. A life not devoted to God profitlesa. — Here am 
I with faculties and an infinite longing to be happy. 
Why am I not ? I have an oppressive sense of evil 
from which there is no escape. I have intense dis- 
satisfaction with myself and all things. Oh ! it would 
not be so if I " dwelt in God and God in me." My 
life, my time, each year, spite of all I do and enjoy, 
seem a gloomy scene of emptiness and vanity. It 

would not be felt so if it were for God that I lived 

if my affections, my activities, my years, my months, 
were devoted to him. Without tiiis, no year is good 
in its progress or its end. A high degree of this 
would have made our former years end nobly, would 
have made the last do so. 

22. The covetous man. — He refuses, perhaps ; or, 
much more probably, just saves the ap])earance and 
irksomeness of formally doing that, by contributing 
what is immeasurably below all fair proportion to his 
means; what is in such disproportion to them, that 
a general standard taken from it would reduce the 
contribiitions of very many other persons to a frac- 
tion of the smallest denomination of our money, and 
would very shortly break up the mechanism of hu- 
man operation for prosecuting a generous design, 
throwing it directly on Providence and miracle. 

23. Uucmploijed resources of the church. — With 
firebrands and torches put into their hands, can they 
be content to stand still and let them burn out, while 
the huge f\ibric inhabited by demon gods, and filled 
with pestilent abominations, spreads wide and towers 
aloft in pride and security before them? 

24 . Denominational appellations should he repressed, 
to repeal, in proportionahh/ . greater projninence, the 
gvncric term Christian. —This can not be done while 
there is so little of the vital element of religicm in the 
world ; because it is so shallow, these inconsiderable 



148 poster's thoughts. 

points stand so prominent above the surface, and oc- 
casion obstruction an.d mischief; when the powerful 
spring-tide of piety and mind shall rise, these points 
will be swallowed up and disappear. 

25. The pJiilowphy of prayer. — Certain fact, that 
whenever a man prays aright, he forgets the philoso- 
phy of it, and feels as if his supplications really would 
make a difference in the determination and conduct 
of the Deity. In this spirit are the prayers recorded 
in the Bible. 

26. Prayer to Heaven the greatest resource of earth, 
— If the people on the parched tracts along the Nile 
had a mighty engine for raising the water to irrigate, 
what would be thousrht of them for toilinor with little 
earthen vessels, from which the element would al- 
most evaporate while they were carrying it % Now 
look at our means for good. There is one pre-emi- 
nent ; just that one that lies nearly unemployed! 
One image of this sort suggests another. The poor, 
superstitious multitudes of India believe that their 
adored river comes from heaven, and they are con- 
sistent. They pant to go to it ; they have recourse 
to it with eager devotion ; they purify their vessels 
with it, and themselves ; they consider it a precious 
element in their food ; they are happy to be carried 
to its banks when dying. Now we know that our 
grand resource of prayer is a blessed privilege grant- 
ed from Heaven, of a peculiarly heavenly quality : 
where is our consistency, if we are indifferent and 
sparing in the use of it ] 

27. Christian vigilance. — It suggests the idea of a 
place where a man can hardly go to sleep, lest the 
plunderer or assassin be watching, or hovering near 
unseen ; or of a place where the people can walk out 
no whither, without suspicion of some lurking dan- 
ger or enemy not far off; and are to be constantly 
looking vigilantly and fearfully round ; a place where 
they can not ascend an eminence, nor wander through 



DUTIES OP CHRISTIANITY. 149 

a sequestered valley, nor enter a blooming grove, nor 
even a garden of flowers, without having the image 
of the serpent, the wild beast, or a more deadly mis- 
chief in human shape, as vividly present to the imagi- 
nation as the visible enemy is to the eye. 

28. Avoidajice of temptation. — Be careful that when 
unquestionable duty leads into the way of temptation, 
we stay not longer near the temptation than we are 
honestly about the duty. Beware of the kind of com- 
panionship that directly leads into temptation. But 
let no man be beguiled to think he is safe against 
temptation at the times when his only companion is 
himself The whole tempting world may then come 
to him through the medium of the imas^ination. The 
great deep of his own evil heart may then be broken 
up. In this solitude may come that tempter that 
came to our Lord in the desert. 

29. Triumph of meekness. — Confront improper 
conduct, not by retaliation, but example. 

30. Incipient temptation. — It is in fatal connexion 
wiih the next ensuing, and yet conceals what is be- 
hind. Since temptation is sui'e to be early with its 
beginnings, so too should watching and praying ; ear- 
ly in life; early in the day; early in every underta- 
king ! What haste the man must make, that will be 
beforehand with temptation ! 

31. Christian heroism. — This soul either shall gov- 
ern this body, or shall quit it. 

32. Conflicts of wisdom and virtue. — One has some- 
times continued in a foolish company, for the sake 
of maintaining a virtuous hostility in favor of wisdom ; 
as the Jordan is said to force a current quite through 
the Dead sea. 

*gf). Conscience, — There is not on earth a more ca- 
pricious, accommodathig, or abused thing, than con- 
science. It would be very possible to exhibit a cu- 
rious classification of consciences in genera and spe- 
cies. What copious matter for speculation among 
13* 



150 poster's thoughts. 

tlie varieties of — lawyer's conscience — cleric con- 
science—lay conscience — lord's conscience — peas- 
ant's conscience — hermit's conscience — tradesman's 
conscience — philosopher's conscience — Christian's 
conscience — conscience of reason — conscience of 
faith — healthy man's conscience — sick man's con- 
science — ingenious conscience — simple conscience, 
&c., &c., &c., &c. 

34. Waic/i and pray. — Watching without prayer 
were but an impious homage to ourselves. Prayer 
without watching were but an impious and also ab- 
surd homaofe to God. 

35. Rule of faith. — A belief that in all things and 
at all events God is to be obeyed ; that there is the 
essential distinction of holiness and sin in all conduct, 
both within the mind and in external action, and 
that sin is absolutely a dreadful evil ; that that must 
not be done which must be repented of; that the fu- 
ture should predominate over the present. 

36. Influences unfriendly to piety. — In addition to 
the grand fact of the depravity of the human heart, 
there are so many causes operating injuriously through 
the week on the characters of those who form a con- 
gregation, that a thoughtful man often feels a melan- 
choly emotion amid his religious addresses, from the 
reflection that he is making a feeble effort against a 
powerful evil, a single effort against a combination of 
evils, a temporary and transient effort against evils 
of continual operation, and a purely intellectual ef- 
fort against evils, many of which act on the senses. 
.... The sight of so many bad examples, the com- 
munications of so many injurious acquaintances, and 
hearing and talking of what would be, if written, so 
many volumes of vanity and nonsense, the predomi- 
nance of fashionable dissipation in one class, and of 
vulgarity in another. 

37. Religion submerged in the world. — I still less 
and less like the wealthy part of your circle (H.'s). 



DUTIES OP CHRISTIANITY. 151 

It appears to me that the main body of principle is 
merged. As to religion, sir, they are in a religious 
divinor-bell : relisfion is not circumambient, but a little 
is conveyed down into the worldly depth, where they 
breathe by a sort of artificial inlet — a tube. 

38. Isolated virtues repressed hy uncongenial asso- 
ciations. — Each good motive must, to be of any essen- 
tial value, be part of a whole general system of such 
motives. There must be a vital circulation of the 
holy principles through the whole soul. The single 
part can not by itself have pulsation, and warmth, and 
life. The one actuating principle will be surrounded 
by a multitude of others ; and if it be a holy one, and 
they are hostile, it will soon be overwhelmed by them 
and perish. 

39. Reputation for virtue necessary to confidence. — 
But no public man can have such a reputation with- 
out having substantially such a character. And by 
a law, as deep in human nature as any of its princi- 
ples of distinction between good and evil, it is im- 
possible to give respect or confidence to a man who 
habitually disregards some of the primary ordinances 
of morality. . . . No man, even of the highest talents, 
can ever acquire, or at least retain, much influence 
on the public mind in the character of remonstrant 
and reformer, without the reality, or at any rate the 
invulnerable reputation, of virtue, in the comprehen- 
sive sense of the word, as comprising every kind of 
morality prescribed by the highest moral code ac- 
knowledged in a Christian nation. 

40. Efficacy of religious hahits, — He will trace all 
the progress of this his better life, with grateful ac- 
knowledgment to the sacred power which has ad- 
vanced him to a decisiveness of religious habit that 
seems to stamp eternity on his character. In the 
greater majority of things, habit is a greater plague 
than ever afflicted Egypt ; in religious character, it is 
a grand felicity. The devout man exults in the in- 



152 Foster's thoughts. 

dications of his being fixed and irretrievable. He 
feels this confirmed habit as the grasp of the hand of 
God, which will never let him go. From this ad- 
vanced state he looks with firmness and joy on futu- 
rity, and says, " I carry the eternal mark upon me 
that I belong to God ; I am free of the universe ; and 
I am ready to go to any world to which he shall 
please to transmit me, certain that everywhere, in 
height or depth, he will acknowledge me for ever." 

41. Attractiveness of simple and unaffected piety. — 
It would be unjust not to observe that some Chris- 
tians, of a subordinate intellectual order, are distin- 
guished by such an unassuming simplicity, by so 
much refinement of conscience, and by a piety so 
fervent and even exalted, that it would imply a very 
perverted state of mind in a cultivated man, if these 
examples did not' operate, notwithstanding the con- 
lined scope of their ideas, to attract him toward the 
faith which renders them so happy and excellent, ra- 
ther than to repel him fiom it. 

42. Slow progress in piety. — How strange and mor- 
tifying that progress in personal religion is so diflEi- 
cult ! that it should not be the natural, earnest, and 
even impetuous tendency of an immortal spirit, sum- 
moned to the prosecution of immortal interests ! 

43. The Savior, tJiough unseen, loved. — Think of 
all the affection of human hearts that has been given 
to the Savior of the world, since he withdrew his vis- 
ible presence from it ! He has appeared to no eye 
of man since the apostles ; but millions have loved 
him with a fervency which nothing could extinguish, 
in life or death. Think of the great " army" of those 
who have suffered death for this love, and have cher- 
ished it in death ! A mightier number still would 
have died for it, and with it, if summoned to do so. 
Think of all those who, in the excitement and inspi- 
ration of this love, have indefatigably labored to pro- 
mote the glory of its great object ! — and the innumer- 



DUTIES OF CHRISTIANITY. 153 

able multitude of those who, though less prominently 
distinguished, have felt this sacred sentiment living 
in the soul, as the principle of its best life, and the 
source of all its imm-ortal hopes ! This is a splendid 
fact in the history of our race, a glorious exception 
to the vast and fatal expenditure of human aiiection 
on unworthy and merely visible things. So grand a 
tribute of the soul has been redeemed to be given to 
the Redeemei', though an object unseen ! . . . . Our 
conceptions are not reduced and confined down to a 
precise image of human personality — a particular, in- 
dividual, graphical form, which would be always pres- 
ent to the mind's eye, in every meditation on the ex- 
alted Redeemer Thus we can with somewhat 

the more facility give our thoughts an unlimited en- 
largement in contemplating his sublime character 
and nature. Thus also we are left at greater freedom 
in the effort to form some grand tho|igh glimmering 
idea of him as possessing a glorious body, assumed 
after his victory over death. Our freedom of thought 
is the more entire for arraying the exalted Mediator 
in every glory which speculation, imagination, devo- 
tion, can combine, to shadow forth the magnificence 

of such an adored object The manner in which 

he appears in the visions of Daniel ; the transfigura- 
tion ; in his manifestation to Paul ; and the transcen- 
dent images in the visions of John — in endeavoring 
to form a sublime conception of him, can add, and 
accumulate upon the idea, all the glory that has arisen 
to him from the progress of his cause in the world 
ever since. So many mighty interpositions ; con- 
quests gained ; strongholds of darkness demolished ; 
such a multitude of sinful immortal spirits redeemed 
— devoted to him on earth, and now triumphing with 
him in heaven : all this is become an added radiance 
around the idea of him ! 

44. Desire of association. — A reflection that never 
occurs without the bitterest pain : one longs for affec- 



154 poster's thoughts. 

tion, for an object to love devotedly, for an interest- 
ing: friend to associate and commune with ; meanwhile 
THE Deity offers his friendship and communion, and 
is refused, or fors^otten ! ! There are, too. the sashes 
of all ages — there is Moses, Daniel, Elijah ; and you 
complain of want of society ! ! ! 

45. God dwells in Ms people. — God has an all-per- 
vading power ; can interpose, as it were, his very es- 
sence through the being of- his creatures; can cause 
hims-elf to be apprehended and felt as absolutely in 
the soul — such an intercommunion as is, by the na- 
ture of things, impossible between created beings. 
And thus the interior, central loneliness, the solitude 
of the soul, is banished by a perfectly intimate pres- 
ence, which imparts the most affecting sense of soci- 
ety — a society, a communion, which imparts life and 
joy, and may continue in perpetuity. To men com- 
pletely immersed in the world, this might appear a 
very abstracted and enthusiastic notion of felicity; 
but to those who have, in any measure, attained it, 
the idea of its loss would give the most emphatic 
sense of the expression, — " Without God in the 
world !" 

46. The rewards of piety progressively developed. 
— Any train of serious thoughts and exercises in the 
mind, having a reference to practical good, and be- 
ginning on one suggestion, one conviction, but at last 
attaining the ultimate effect or result ; .... a course 
of inquiry concerning any important truth ; the begin- 
ning is ignorance, doubt, anxiety, dread of the labor, 
misty and dubious twilight, and daybreak ; but the 

end, knowledge, certainty, satisfaction, &c. ; 

any practical undertaking for social good, as the 

present one; Christian profession; examples 

of the contrary are justly accounted among the most 
melancholy sights on earth ; . . . . life itself: in the 
beginning are the charms of infancy ; but the end 
may be far better ; as in the case of a withered, ti*em- 



DUTIES OF CHRISTIANITY. 155 

oling, sinking old man, whose soul is ripe for eter- 
nity ; and it should be so, and must be so, or life is 
an awful calamity ! . . , . The fruit is better than the 
blossom, the reaping is better than the sowing, the 
enjoyment better than the reaping ; the second stage 
of a journey to the happy home is better than the 
first ; the home itself than all ; the victory is better 
than the march and the battle ; the reward is better 
than the course of service ; the ending in the highest 
improvement of means is better than being put at 
firet in possession of them. 



156 Foster's thoughts. 



CHAPTER VII. 

OF MAN THE FORMATION OF CHARACTER ITS SOUR 

CES AND DIVERSITIES POPULAR IGNORANCE, AND 

THE DIFFUSION OF KNOWLEDGE. 

1. On the greatness of man. — Mankind viewed 
collectively, as an assemblage of beings, presents to 
contemplation an object of astonishing magnitude. It 
has spread over this wide world to essay its powers 
against every obstacle, and every element ; and to 
plant in every region its virtues and its vices. As 
we pass along the plains, we perceive them marked 
by the labors, the paths, or the habitations of man. 
Proceeding forward across rivers, or through woods, 
or over mountains, we still find man in possession on 
the other side. Each valley that opens, and each hill 
that rises before us, presents a repetition of human 
abodes, contrivances, and appropriations ; for each 
house, and garden, and field (in some places almost 
each tree), reminds us that there is a person some- 
where who is proud to think and say, ** This is mine." 

All the beautiful and rugged varieties of earth, from 
the regions of snow to those of burning sand, havo 
been pervaded by man. If we sail to countries be- 
yond the seas, we find him still, though he may dis- 
claim our language, our manners, and our color. 
And if we discover lands wlieru he is not, we pres- 
ently quit them, as if the Creator too were a stranger 
there. Here and there indeed a desert retreat is in- 
habited by an ascetic, whom the solemnity of solitude 



FORMATION OF CHARACTER. 157 

has drawn thither; or by a felon, whom guilt has 
driven thither. 

While he extends himself thus over the world, be- 
hold this collective grandeur. It appears prominent 
in great cities built by his own hands ; it is seen in 
structures that look likeh. temples erected to time, 
which promise by their strength to await the latest 
years of his continuance with men ; and seem to plead 
by their magnificence against the decree which dooms 
them to perish when he shall abandon them ; it is 
seen in wide empires, and in armies, which may be 
called the talons of imperial power — to give security 
to happiness where that power is just, but for cruel 
ravage where it is tyrannical ; it is displayed in fleets ; 
in engines which operate as if informed with a por- 
tion of the actuating power of his own mind ; in the 
various productions of beauty ; the discoveries of 
science ; in subjected elements, and a cultivated globe. 
The sentiment with which we contemplate this scene 
is greatly augmented when imagination bears her 
flaming torch into the enormous shade which over- 
spreads the past, and passes over the whole succes- 
sion of human existence, with all its attendant prod- 
igies. When we have made the addition for futurity, 
of supposing the human race extensively enlightened, 
apprized of their dignity and power, and combined 
in a far stricter union, till the vast ocean of mind pre- 
vail over all its accustomed boundaries, and sweep 
away many of the evils which oppress the world — 
we may pause awhile and indulge our amazement. 
Such an aggregate view of the multitude, achieve- 
ments, and powers of man, is grand. It has the air 
of a general and endless triumph. 

2. Great men. — A character stands before us of 
colossal stature, who presents th-e lineaments and the 
powers of man in magnitude — a magnitude which 
conceals a numerous crowd of mankind undistinguish- 
ed behind him. His aspect declares that he knows 
14 



158 poster's thoughts. 

he belongs tj himself, and that he possesses himself; 
while the rest seem only to belong as appendages to 
the situation. He brings fro.m the Creator a com- 
mission far more ample than those of other men ; and 
instead of having to learn with tedious application, 
the nature and circumstances of the world to which 
he is sent, it appears as if he had been taught them 
all before he came. Guided by intuitive principles 
and rule, he enters on the stage of action with the 
intelligent confidence of one who has accomplished 
himself by frequenting it long. And whatever still 
undiscovered means and materials are requisite to his 
achievements, some kind of internal revelation informs 
him where they are, though latent in earth, water, 
air, or fire ; and empowers him quickly to detect them 
and draw them thence. We observe that for many 
things he has regards and names different from the 
common ; for some objects generally esteemed great, 
excite no emotion in him, or none but contempt. He 
calls suffering, discipline ; sacrifices, emolument ; and 
what ai-e usually deemed insuperable obstacles, ho 
names impediments, and casts them out of the way, 
oi vaults over them. His mind seems a focus which 
concentrates into one ardent beam the languid lights 
and fires of ten thousand surrounding minds. It 
might be expected that a few such extraordinary 
specimens of human hature, scattered here and there, 
would have a wonderful influence on the rest of men. 
One might expect to see a most fervid emulation 
kindled wide, indolence and folly discarded, and trifles 
falling to the ground from all hands. It should seem 
natural to make the reflection, " Either these are 
more than men, or we are less." .... A sublime image 
of perfection is constantly before them at a distance, 
though a gloomy cloud may sometimes inteipose, to 
obscure or for a moment hide it. They are like 
night-adventurers, who, having caught a view of a 
noble mansion of a difficult eminence, resolve to reach 



FORMATION OF CHARACTER. 159 

it, while, together with the path that conducts thither, 
it is alternately revealed by flashes of lightning, and 
shrouded by the returning darkness. They are 
grieved almost to madness when they feel their spirits 
failing in a trial, or find their powers retreating from 
some noble but arduous attempt. Grand objects in 
the natural world affect them powerfully, and their 
images are adopted as a kind of scenery for the in- 
terior apartment of the mind, to assist it to form great 
thoughts. But the interest they feel in greatness 
when it shines in their brother man, is of force to fire 
their utmost enthusiasm, at the view of exalted hero- 
ism, displayed in enterprise, in suffering, or even in 
retirement, and to melt them into tears at the recital 
of an act of godlike generosity. For a while they 
almost lament that they could not be there, and them- 
selves the actors, though ages have passed since. In 
the reveries into which they sometimes wander, they 
are apt to personate some exalted character in some 
interesting situation; or more frequently to fancy 
themselves such characters, and create situations of 
their own ; and when they return from visionary 
rovings, to the serious ground of reason, regretting 
the inertion of the past, they solemnly resolve the 
most strenuous exertions to surpass, beyond measure, 
all around them, and their present selves. 

3. Indifference of the masses to the distinctions of 
genius. — Is it true that the human nature was cast 
to carry forward the great series of existence, from 
the inferior to the higher ranks of being, by a grada- 
tion which swch parts were necessary to complete? 
or is it a solemn decree of fate that the aggregate 
amount of human dignity must not exceed a certain 
measure, and therefore the splendid intellectual pos- 
sessions of individuals are of the nature of conquests, 
made at the expense of part of their brethren, v^ho 
must be degraded, to counterbalance these glories ] 
As to the very numerous class who hold the degree 



160 poster's THOUt HTS. 

of mediocrity, tell them of a man who has perfoiTnea 
a noble act of justice or benevolence in spite of the 
most powerful temptations to the contrary; tell them 
of another who has suffered tortures and death for 
virtue's sake — and suffered them witho'Ut a groan ; 
describe to them heroes who have possessed their 
souls unappalled when environed by dangers, and 
horrors, and death, and fire ; or talk to them of a sub- 
lime genius, that transcending Milton's powerful 
agents, who constructed a road from the infernal king- 
dom to this unfortunate world, has carried a path from 
this world among the stars, and generally the emotion 
kindled would be so languid, that the smallest trifle 
will extinguish it, and turn attention another way. 
They are content to acknowledge that such charac- 
ters are much superior to them, just as they would 
acknowledge that a tree is taller, and then think no 
more about them. They resemble some lazy and 
incurious peasants inhabiting the neighborhood of a 
high mountain, from the top of which they have heard 
that vast plains, and cities, and. ocean, can be seen, 
but never thought it worth the labor to ascend for 
such a view. 

4. The myriad influences comhining to form char- 
acter. — Through this lengthened, and, if the number 
could be told, stupendous multiplicity of things, you 
have advanced, while all their heterogeneous myriads 
have darted influences upon you, each one of them 
having some definable tendency. A traveller round 
the globe would not meet a greater variety of sea- 
sons, prospects, and winds, than you might have re- 
corded of the circumstances affecting the progress 
of your character, in your moral journey. You 
could not wish to have drawn to yourself the agency 
of a vaster diversity of causes ; you could not wish, 
on the supposition that you had gained advantage from 
all these, to wear the spoils of a greater number of 
regions. The formation of the character from so 



FORMATION OP CHARACTER. 161 

many materials reminds one of that mighty appro- 
priating- attraction, which, on the hypothesis that the 
resurrection should reassernble the same particles 
which composed the body before, must draw them 
fiom dust, and trees, and animals, from ocean, and 
winds. 

5. Comparatively tripling incidents of early life de 
rive vast importance from prospective hearing upon 
character and destiny. — The first rude settlement of 
Romulus would have been an insignificant circum- 
stance, and might justly have sunk into oblivion, if 
Rome had not at length commanded the world. The 
little rill, near the source of one of the great Ameri- 
can rivers, is an interesting object to the traveller, 
who is apprized, as he steps across it, or walks a few 
miles along its bank, that this is th^ stream which 
runs so far, and v/hich gradually swells into so im- 
mense a flood. So, while I anticipate the endless 
progress of life, and wonder through what unknown 
scenes it is to take its course, its past years lose that 
character of vanity which would seem to belong to 
a train of fleeting perishing moments, and I see them 
assuming the dignity of a commencing eternity, 

6. Unsuspected importance of early life. — When 
we go back to it in thought, and endeavor to recal 
the interests which animate it, they will not come. 
We are like a man returning, after the absence of 
many years, to visit the embowered cottage where 
he passed the morning of his life, and finding only a 
relic of its ruins. 

But many of the propensities which still continue, 
probably originated then : and our not being able to 
explore them up to those remote sources renders a 
complete investigation of our moral and intellectual 
characters for ever impossible. How little, in those 
years, we are aware, when we met with the inci- 
dent, or heard the conversation, or saw the spectacle 
or felt the emotion, which were the first causes of 
14* 



162 poster's thoughts. 

some of the chief permanent tendencies of future life, 
how much and how vainly we might, long afterward, 
wish to ascertain the oris^in of those tendencies. 

7. Education of life. — We may regard our past 
life as a continued though iiTegular course of educa- 
tion ; and the discipline has consisted of instruction, 
companionship, reading, and the diversified influences 

of the world I am highly pleased to feel that I 

am acquiring something of that military discipline of 
thought and action, which 1 suppose will be indispen- 
sable through the whole of life. 

8. Elements of character traced to their sources 
along the retrospect of life. — I yet can not but per- 
ceive that the immediate causes of the greater por- 
tion of the prominent actual character of human be- 
ings are to be found in those moral elements through 
which they pass. And if one might be pardoned for 
putting in words, so fanciful an idea as that of its being 
possible for a man to live back again to his infancy, 
through all the scenes of his life, and to give back 
from his mind and character, at each time and cir- 
cumstance, as he repassed it, exactly that which he 
took from it when he was there before, it would be 
most curious to see the fragments and exuvice of the 
moral man lying here and there along the retrograde 
path, and to find what he v^as in the beginning of this 
train of modifications and acquisitions. 

9. Absorbing power of a man of genius. — His mind 
seems a focus which concentrates into one ardent 
beam the languid lights and fires often thousand sur- 
rounding- minds. 

10. States of mind and progress of character are the 
life, and not a series of facts and dates. — It is often 
by a detail of this subordinate economy of life, that 
the works of fiction, the narratives of age, the jour- 
nals of travellers, and even grave biographical ac- 
counts, are made so unreasonably long. As well 
inight a chronicle of the coats that a man has vsrorn, 



FORMATION OP CHARACTER. 163 

with the color and date of each, be called his life, for 
any important uses of relating its history. As well 
might a man of whom I inquire the dimensions, the 
internal divisions, and the use, of some remarkable 
buildin,g, begin to tell me how much wood was em- 
ployed in the scaffolding, where the mortar was pre- 
pared, or how often it rained while the work was 
proceeding. 

11. The immortality of chai'acter. — We must be 
prepared to surrender to the inevitable approaches 
of mortality, and the more earnestly aspire to be 
ready to surrender the whole of what can die'. How 
striking to realize the idea, that at a time, £tt the ut- 
most comparatively not distant, this entire material 
frame, with all that in it is now in order and in dis- 
order, will be under ground and dissolving into dust ! 
I often image to myself the fact, as it will one day 
be, when, at the same time, all above ground will 
continue to be as we see it now, and are sharers of 
its life and activity — a^ profusion of blooming youth, 
amusement, business, infinitely various interests and 
pursuits, and (as now) little thought of death. So 
far the anticipated, inevitable, and prodigious change, 
can not but have a dreary aspect. But there is the 
never-dying principle, the spiritual agent, the real and 
imperishable being ;. that will be set free, and rise in 
sublime independence of dust, and all that can be 
turned to dust : let us take care of that, or rather com- 
mit it to God to be taken care of, and then never mind, 
the insignificant loss which we are doomed to incur, 
of a piece of organized clay. 

12. Want of self-covjidence an element of weakness 
of character. — Let them be brought into the necessi- 
ty of adopting actual measures in an untried proceed- 
ing, where, unassisted by any previous example or 
practice, they are reduced to depend on the resources 
of pure judgment alone, and you will see, in many 
cases, this confidence of opinion vanish away. The 



164 poster's thoughts. 

mind seems all at once placed in a mrsty vacuity, 
where it reaches round on all sides, but can find noth- 
ing to take hold of. Or if not lost in vacuity, it is 
overwhelmed by confusion ; and feels as if its facul- 
ties were annihilated as soon as it begins to think 
of schemes and calculations among the possibilities, 
chances, and hazards, which overspread a wide, un- 
trodden field ; and this conscious imbecility becomes 
severe distress, when it is believed that consequences, 
of serious or unknown good or evil, are depending 
on the decisions which are to be formed amid so 
much uncertainty. The thought painfully recurs at 
each step and turn — " I may be right, but it is more 
probable I am wrong." 

13. Obstinacy of character not decision. — It may 
produce that false and contemptible kind of decision 
which we term obstinacy ; a stubbornness of temper, 
which can assign no reasons but mere will, for a con- 
stancy which acts in the nature of dead weight ra- 
ther than of strength ; resembling less the reaction 
of a powerful spring, than the gravitation of a big 
stone. 

14. Energy and force of cJiaracter augmented by 
vigorous physical constitution. — It would be for physi- 
ologists to explain, if it were explicable, the manner 
in which corporeal organization aifects the mind ; I 
only assume it as a fact that there is in the material 
construction of some persons, much more than of 
others, some quality which augments, if it does not 
create, both the stability of their resolution and the 
energy of their active tendencies. There is some- 
thinor that, like the lio-atures which one class of tho 
Olympic combatants bound on their hands and wrists, 
braces round, if I may so describe it, and compresses 
the powers of the mind, giving them a steady, forci- 
ble spring and reaction, which they would presently 
lose if they could be transferred into a constitution 
of soft, yielding, treacherous debility. ' The action 



FORMATION OF CHARACTER. 165 

of stron": cliaracter seems to demand somethins' firm 
in its corporeal basis, as massive engines requii'e, for 
their weight and for their working, to be fixed' on a 
solid foundation. 

\5. A strenuous will an element of decided charac- 
ter. — Another essential principle of the character is, 
a total incapability of surrendering to indifference or 
delay the serious determinations of the mind. A 
strenuous will must accompany the conclusions of 
thought, and constantly incite the utmost efforts for 
their practical accomplishment. The intellect must 
be invested, if I may so describe it, with a glowing 
atmosphere of passion, under the influence of which 
the cold dictates of reason take fire, and spring into 
active powers. 

16. Religious faith the highest element of moral 
courage. — The last decisive energy of a rational cour- 
age, which confides in the Supi eme Power, is very 
sublime. It makes a man, who intrepidly dares ev- 
erything that can oppose or attack him within the 
whole sphere of mortality ; who would retain his pur- 
pose unshaken amid the ruins of the world ; who will 
still press toward his object while death is impending 
over him. It was in the true elevation of this char- 
acter that Luther, when cited to appear at the diet 
of Worms, under a very questionable assurance of 
safety from high authority, said to his friends, who 
conjured him not to go, and justly brought the ex- 
ample of John Huss, who, in a similar situation, and 
with the same pledge of protection, had notwithstand- 
ing been burnt alive, " I am called in the name of 
God to go, and I would go, though I were certain to 
meet as many devils in Worms as there are tiles on 
the houses !" — A reader of the Bible will not forget 
Daniel, bravinsr in calm devotion the decree which 
virtually consigned him to the den of lions ; or Sha- 
drach, Meshach, and Abed-nego, saying to the tyrant. 



166 Foster's thoughts. 

" We are not careful to answer thee in this matter," 
when the furnace was in sight. 

17. I know no mort'ijication so severe as that which 
accompanies the evinced inefficacy, in one's own con- 
duct, of a virtuous conviction so decisive that it can 
receive no additional cogency from the resources of 
either the judgment or the heart. 

18. Query : whether the generality of minds, the 
common order, could be cultivated into accuracy and 
discri^nination of general thought ? — No ; they might 
be made accurate in a particular department, depend- 
ing on facts — accurate mechanics, tradesmen, gram- 
marians, &c. ; but not as thinkers on the wide gen- 
eral field of truth and sentiment. " This is very un- 
fortunate." — "No, madam, all is appointed by the 
Deity ; and if more geniuses had been needful, they 
would have been forthcoming." 

19. Co77imonplace character. — As to the crowd of 
those who are faithfully stamped, like bank-notes, 
with the same marks, with the difference only of be- 
ing worth more guineas or fewer, they are mere par- 
ticles of a class, mere pieces and bits of the great 
vulgar or the small ; they need not write their history, 
it may be found in the newspaper chronicle, or the 
gossip's or the sexton's narrative. 

20. Those averse to inquiry. — They resemble some 
lazy and incurious peasants inhabiting the neighbor- 
hood of a high mountain, from the top of which they 
hav-e heard that vast plains, and cities, and ocean, can 
be seen, but never thought 'it worth the labor to as- 
cend for such a view. 

21. Aversion to reflection. — Is it not too evident, 
that people's attention and thought mainly go out- 
ward ? insomuch that retiring inioard would be like 
retreating into a narrow, dark, desolate, comfortless 
apartment of a house, or into a pri-son or a cavern. 
But there can be no effective self-examination with- 
out a resolute and often-repeated effort to retire in- 



FORMATION OF CHARACTER. 167 

ward,, and stay a while, and pointedly inspect what is ■ 
there. You can imagine that often a man has been 
frightened out of his soul to take refuge in the ap- 
parently better quality of his conduct. Any impulse 
the examiner feels to do so, should warn him to stay 
a while longer there — in the interior. It is especially 
there that the great substance lies of what is wrong, 
or right, as toward God. 

22. Inattention to the coviplex action and diversi- 
fied experience of the mind. — Men carry their minds 
as they carry their watches, content to be ignorant 
of the mechanism of their movements, and satisfied 
with attending to the little exterior circle of things, 
to which the passions, like indexes, are pointing. 

23. Learned in all science and history hut that of 
oneself — He may have lived almost an age, and trav- 
ersed a continent, minutely examining its curiosities, 
and interpreting the half-obliterated characters on its 
monuments, unconscious the while of a process op- 
erating on his own mind, to impress or to erase char- 
acteristics of much more importance to him than all 
the figured brass or marble that Europe contains. 
After having explored many a cavern, or dark, ruin- 
ous avenue, he may have left undetected a darker 
recess in his character. He may have conversed with 
many people, in different languages, on numberless 
subjects ; but, having neglected those conversations 
with himself by which hjs whole moral being should 
have been kept continually disclosed to his view, he 
is better qualified perhaps to describe the intrigues 
of a foreign court, or the progress of a foreign trade ; 
to represent the manners of the Italians or the Turks ; 
£o narrate the proceedings of the Jesuits, or the ad- 
ventures of the gipsies; than to write the history of 
his own mind. 

24. Waste of thoughts. — The sun may waste an 
immense proportion of his beams — the clouds of iheir 
showers — but these can be spared ; there is an infi- 



168 FOSTER*S THOUGHTS. 

nite opulence still, for all the indispensable purposes 
of natui'e. It is not so with our thinking faculty. 
The most saving use of our thinking power will but 
imperfectly suffice for the knowledge, sound judg- 
ment, and wisdom, which are so very necessary for 
us. It is wretched, then, that this precious thing, the 
activity of our thinking spirit, should run to utter 
waste. It is as if the fine element, gas, by means of 
which your city is now lighted, should be suffered to 
expire into the air without being kindled into light. 
.... As when, in some regions, a swarm of locusts 
fills the air, so as to exclude the sun, at once inter- 
cepting the light of heaven, and devouring what it 
should shine on. Thus by ill-regulated thought we 
are defrauded of what is the supreme value of thought. 
We amuse ourselves with the flying chaff, careless of 

the precious grain What will ten thousand of 

these trifling, volatile thoughts come to, for explain- 
ing any subject, disentangling any perplexity, recti- 
fying any false notion, enforcing any argument, main- 
taining any truth 1 It is in vain that the man glances 
in recollection and research through all the idle crowd 
of his ideas, for anything to avail him. It were like 
bringing straws, and leaves, and feathers, to meet an 
account where silver and gold are required. . . . Of- 
ten, on looking back on a day or a week, we can 
mark out large portions in which life was of no use 
—in other words, was nothing worth — because the 
mind did nothing, and gained nothing ; notwithstand- 
ing that the while the pulsation of the blood and all 
the vital functions of the animal life went on ; not 
withstanding that the dial noted the rapid hours, the 
sun rose and set, the grand volume of truth was ex- 
panded before us, and the great operations of nature 
held their uncontrollable course It was impos- 
sible not to regret that the power most made for ac- 
tion and advance, the power apparently adapted to 
run a race with any orb in the sky, should be so im- 



FORMATION 01' CHARACTER. 1C9 

mensely left behind. And it was difficult to avoid 
the folly of wishing that the soul, too, were under 
some grand law of necessitated exertion and inevi- 
table improvement. 

I remember when once, many years ago, musing 
in reflective indolence, observing the vigorous vege- 
tation of some shrubs and plants in spring, I wished 
that the powers of the mind too could not help growing 
in the same spontaneous manner. But this vain wish 
instantly gave place to the recollected sober convic- 
tion, that there is a simple and practicable process 
which would as certainly be followed by the high im- 
provements of reason, as the vegetable luxury follows 
the genial warmth and showers of spring. If all our 
wishes for important acquirements had become ef- 
forts, my friend ! if all those spaces of time, that have 
been left free from the claims of other employment, 
had been spent in such g, determined exercise of our 
faculties, as we recollect to have sustained at a few 
particular seasons, how much more correct, acute, 
ample, and lich, they would at this time have been ! 

25. Mortfying review of the progress of character. 
— Many years are now gone since the conduct and 
tFie responsibility of my own education devolved en- 
tirely on myself. It is not necessary to review these 
years in order to estimate the manner in which this 
momentous charge has been executed. The present 
state of my mind and character supplies a mortify- 
ing excess of proof, that the interesting work has 
been conducted ill. 

26. Observation available to the formation of 
character. — A great defect in the intellectual econo- 
my of my life ; I have made many observations on 
men and things, but have let these observations re- 
main in insulated izV*, and have seldom referred them 
to any general principles of truth, or of the philoso- 
phy of the human mind. Such observations have a 
particular uSe when applied to circumstances, but 

15 



170 Foster's thoughts. 

not the gen^eral use of p-erfecting system, or illustra- 
ting theoiy. Qy. Has this defect been owing to 
indolence or incapacity 1 

27. Amplitude and symmetry of character. — Quan- 
tity of existence may perhaps be a proper phrase for 
that, the less or more of which causes the less or 
more of our interest in the individuals around us. 
The person who gives us most the idea of ample be- 
ing, interests us the most. Something certainly de- 
pends on the Tnodification of this being, and some- 
thing on its comprising each of the parts requisite to 
completeness ; but still perhaps the most depends on 
its quantity. This is the principle of my attachment 
to Y. I do not exactly like the modification, and 
there seems a defect of one article or two to entire- 
ness ; but I am gratified by the ample measure. Z., 
has both the ample quantity of being, and the charm- 
ing modification, and the entire number of parts ; 
Z., is therefore the most interesting^ individual 1 know. 

28. Aversion to self knowledge. — In a numerous 
assembly or in the crowd of a city, it is presumed, 
by any one that happens to think of it, that very few, 
among the numbers round him, have a deep, com- 
prehensive, well-rectified, steady estimate of them- 
selves — a true insight. The presumption, or sur- 
mise, is understood to go even as far as this ; that 
suppose any number of persons, acquainted with one 
another — the judgments they form of one another 
would, in the whole account, be nearer the truth than 
those which they entertain of their ownselves, not- 
withstanding the great advantage men have for know- 
ing themselves better than others can There 

may be a reluctance to making a rigorous scrutiny, 
from fear, and thus men remain in ignorance. There 
may be some apprehension of finding the state of the 
case less satisfactory than the man is allowing him- 
self to assume it. This may seem like expressing an 
inconsistency — that a man will not know what he 



FORMATION OF CHARACTER. 17^ 

does know. But it is too real and common a case ; 
intimations of something- not rio^ht are unwillino^lv 
perceived ; apprehension of what there may be be 
neath is felt ; a man would rather not be sure of the 
whole truth ; would wilfully hope for the best, and 
so pass off from the doubtful subject, afraid to go too 
far inward. 

But here is a most remarkable and strange specta- 
cle ! A soul afraid of itself! afraid of being deeply 
intimate with itself; of knowing itself; of seeing 
itself, having had some glimpses of itself, afraid to 
meet its own full visage — afraid to stay with itself, 
alone, still, and attentive — afraid of intimate commu- 
nication, lest the soul should speak out from its in- 
most recesses ! All the while, what it is afraid of is 
its own very self, from which it is every where and 
for ever inseparable ! 

29. Escape from reflection. — It is a bad sign when 
we see a person in this state or feeling just merely 
anxious and endeavoring to escape from it ; when 
there is a horror of solitude ; a recourse to anything 
that will help to banish reflection ; such as change 
of place ; making excursions ; contiiving visits and 
parties ; endeavoring to force the spirits up to the 
pitch of lively society; even trying amusements, when 
really little in the mood for amusement. This is a 
wretched and self-defraudino^manao^ement. . . . Have 
you yet come to a determinate judgment on the state 
of your mind, in reference to its greatest interests 1 
If not, is a season of unusually grave feeling, of all 
times the wrong one for such a purpose ] Have you 
yet come to a full consent of the soul to take death 
and eternity into the system of your interests ; into 
an intimate combination with all that you are wish- 
ing, projecting, and pursuing? .... If there be any- 
thing dubious as to this great matter, are you impa- 
tient to hasten away into a state of feeling in which 



172 poster's thoughts. 

you may slumber over such a question,'' and such a 
doubt ? 

30. Indisposition of jnanhind to think, makes the 
world a vast dormitory of souls. The heaven-ap- 
pointed destiny under which they are placed, seems 
to protect them from reflection ; there is an opium 
sky stretched over all the world, which continually 
rains soporifics. 

31. Thoughts the mivror of the heart. — Just left 
to themselves, to arise and act spontaneously, they 
would express the very state of the soul, its inclina- 
tions, perversions, ignorance, or any better quality 
there may be in it. So that if the involuntary thoughts 
could but stiike against a mirror, a man might see 
his mental image. 

32. Fundamental cure of evil thoughts. — If there 
were a spot of marshy ground, which exhaled offen- 
sive vapors, it would be ridiculous to think of expe- 
dients to be used in the air above it, fumigations, or 
any such thing ; the ground itself must be drained 
and reclaimed. As to the correction of the mental 
vice in question, how evident it is that it is not to be 
a thing to operate solely on the thoughts themselves, 
rejecting, repelling, substituting, &c., but to operate 
primarily on that in the mind which causes their 
prevalence. The passions and affections are grand 
sources of thoughts — they therefore are to be in a 
rectified state not tending to produce vain thoughts. 

33. Gradatiou and fruits of wicked thoughts. — 
Thus vain thoughts, compared with vicious, pollu- 
ted thoughts, malignant thoughts, and blasphemous 
thoughts. O, the depth to which the investigation 
and the censure may descend ! 

We can easily picture to oui minds some large 
neglected mansion in a foreign wilderness ; the upper 
apartments in possession of swarms of disgusting in- 
sects ; the lower ones the haunt of savage beasts ; 
but the lowest, the subterraneous one, the retreat 



FORMATION OF CHARACTER. 173 

of serpents, and every loathsome living form of the 

most deadly venom Never stagnant pool was 

more prolific of flies, nor the swarm about it more 
wild and worthless ! . . . . Have they given and left 
me anything worth having] what] Have they 
made me any wiser ] wherein 1 What portion of 
previous ignorance have they cleared away] In 
what point is my judgment rectified] What good 
purp">se have they fixed or forwarded] What one 
thin,ij that was wrong has been corrected ] or even 
more clearly seen how to be coiTected ] Is it, can 
it be the :^ct, that all that succession passed me but 
as the lights and shadows of an April day ? or as the 
insects that have flown past me in the air ] While 
ten thousand or a hundred thousand ideas have pass- 
ed my mind, might I really as well have had none ? 
.... Any grains of gold-dust deposited by the stream 
that has carried down so many millions of particles 
of mud ] 

34. Religion the noblest pursuit. — How could you 
estimate so meanly your mind with all its capacities, 
as to feel no regret that an endless series of trifles 
should seize, and occupy as their right, all your 
thoughts, and deny them both the liberty and the 
ambition of going on to the greatest object ] How, 
while called to the contemplations which absorb the 
spirits of Heaven, could you be so patient of the task 
of counting the flies of a summer's day ] 

35. Vices jiourishing in old age. — An old stump 
of an oak, with a few young shoots on its almost bare 
top. Analogy : youthful follies growing on old age. 

36. Splendid talents without virtuous jjhilanthropy. 
— A still pool amid a most barren heath, shining 
resplendently in the morning sunshine. Analogy : 
talents accompanied with moral barrenness, that is, 
indolence or depravity. 

37. Limited acquirements from unlimited means of 
improvement. — What an astonishing massof^a^wZww* 

15* 



174 poster's thoughts. 

is consumed to sustain an individual human being ! 
How much nourishment I have consumed by eating 
and drinking; how much air by breathing; how 
much of the element of affection my heart has claim- 
ed, and has sometimes lived in luxury, and sometimes 
starved ! Above all ! what an infinite sum of those 
instructions which are to feed the moral and intel- 
lectual man, have I consumed, and how poor the 
consequence ! What a despicable, dwarfish growth 
I exhibit to myself and to God at this hour ! 

Yes, how much it takes in this last respect, to grow 
how little ! Millions of valuable thoughts I suppose 
have passed through my mind. How often my con- 
science has admonished me! How many thousands 
of pious resolutions ! How all nature has preached 
to me ! How day and night, and solitude and the 
social scenes, and books and the bible, the gravity of 
sermons and the flippancy of fools, life and death, the 
ancient world and the modern, sea and land, and the 
omnipresent God ! have all concurred to instruct me ! 
and behold the miserable result of all ! ! I wonder 
if the measure of effect be a ten thousandth part of 
the bulk, to call it so, of this vast combination of 
causes. How far is this strange proportion between 
moral effects and their causes necessary in simple 
nature (analogically with the proportion between 
cause and consequence \\\ jyliysical 'pabuluui), and how 
far is it the indication and the consequence of nature 
being depraved ? However this may be, the enor- 
mous fact of the inefhcacy of truth shades with mel- 
ancholy darkness to my view, all the hopes for my- 
self and for others, of any grand improvements in this 
woild ! 

38. Valuahle acquirements personal. — The man 
into whose house I step a quarter of an hour, or whom 
I meet on the road, or whose hand 1 take, and con- 
verse with him, looking in his face the while — he so 
near me, that walks with me, that traverses a field or 



FORMATION OF CHARACTEK. 175 

Bits in an arbor with me — ^he may have a soul fraught 
with celestial fire, stores of science, brilliant ideas, 
magnanimous principles, while I — I that observe his 
countenance and hear him talk — may have nothing 
of all this. He may for the last ten years have been 
assiduous in studies day and night, while I have con- 
sumed the morning in sleep, and the day in indolent 
vacancy of every sentiment, except wishing, *' which 
of all employments is the worst." What right have 
I to wish he should leave part of his animated and 
powerful character with me 1 But he can not, if he 
would. He takes his resplendent soul away, and 
leaves me to feel, that as he is individual, so, too, un- 
fortunately, am I. The mind must operate within 
its own self, and by its own will; else, though sur- 
rounded by a legion of angels, it would be dark and 
stationary still. 

39. Approving the good but pursuing the had. — 
There is the great affair — moral and religious improve- 
ment. What is the true business of life ? To gi'ow 
wiser, more pious, more benevolent, more ardent, 
more elevated in every noble pui-pose and action, to 
resemble the Divinity ! It is acknowledged ; who 
denies or doubts \t% What then] Why, care noth- 
ing at all about it ! Sacrifice to trifles the energies 
of the heart, and the short and fleeting time allotted 
for divine attainments ! Such is the actual course 
of the world. What a thing is mankind ! 

40. Value of conversational power. — Struck, in two 
instances, with the immense importance, to a man of 
sense, of obtaining a conversational predominance, in 
order to be of any use in any company exceeding 
the smallest number.— r-Example, W. Frend. 

41. Assimilating influence of intercourse with men 
of genius. — A person who can be habitually in the 
company of a communicative man of original genius 
for a considerable time, without being greatly modi- 
fied, is either a very great, or a contemptibly little 



176 poster's thoughts. 

being ; he has either the vigorous firmness of ihe oak, 
or the heavy firmness of the stone. 

42. Proper end of reading. — Readers in general 
who have an object beyond amusement, yet are not 
apprized of the most important use of reading, the 
acquisition of poiver. Their knowledge is not pow- 
er; and, too, the memory retains but the small part 
of the knowledge of which a book should be full ; 
the grand object, then, should be to improve the 
strength and tone of the mind by a thinking, analyzing, 
discriminating, manner of reading. 

43. Gentleness tempered hy firmness. — A character 
should retain always the upright vigor of manliness; 
not let itself be bent and fixed in any specific form. 
It should be like an upright elastic tree, which bends, 
accommodating a little to each win^ on every side, 
but never loses its spring and self-dependent vigor. 

44. Long familiarity with the fashionable world 
destroys the relish for the more substantial enjoyments 
of life. — After looking a good while on the glaring 
side of the view, my eye does not nicely distinguish 
these modest beauties in the shade. Analogy : a man 
whose feelings and habits are formed in splendid and 
fashionable life, has no relish for the charms of re- 
tirement, or of secluded, affectionate society. 

45. Character of courtiers. — Characters formed 
in the routine of a court, like pebbles in a brook, are 
rounded into a smooth unifoi-mity, in which the points 
and angles of virtuous singularity are lost. 

46. Great natural amiableness of character, seems 
not compatible xoith the sublimest virtue. — I doubt 
if S. is not too innocent to become sublimely excel- 
lent ; her heart is purity and kindness ; her recollec- 
tions are complacent ; her wishes and intentions are 
all good. In such a mind conscience becomes ef- 
feminate for want of hard exercise. She is exempt- 
ed from those revulsions of the heart, that remorse, 
those self-indignant regrets, those impetuous convic- 



FORMATION OF CHARACTER. 177 

tions, which sometimes assist to scourge tl/e mind 
away from its stationary habits into such a region of 
daring and arduous virtue, as it would never have 
reached, nor even thought of, but for this mighty im- 
pulse of pain. Witness Albany in Cecilia. Vehe- 
ment emotion, mortifying contrast, shuddering alarm, 
sting the mind into an exertion of power 'it was un- 
conscious of before, and urge it on with restless 
velocity toward the attainment of that moral em- 
inence, short of which it would equally scorn and 
dread to repose. We fly from pain or terror more 
eagerly than we pursue good ; but if both these 
causes aid our advance ! 

A young eagle perhaps would never have quitted 
the warm luxury of its nest, and towered into the 
sky, if the parent had not pushed it or the tempest 
flung it off", and thus compelled it to fly by the dan- 
ger of perishing. Is it not too possible that S. may 
repose complacently in the innocent softness of her 
nest, and die without ever having^ unfolded thewingf 
of sublime adventure. At sight of such a death one 
would weep with tenderness, not glow with admira- 
tion ; it is a charming woman that falls, not a radiant 
angel that rises. 

47. Exquisite susceptihility. — (Remark on the 
character of Green.) There is such a predominant 
habit of deep feeling in his mind, that the smallest 
touch, a single sentence, will instantly bring his mind 
and his very voice into that tone. Comparing him 
to a musical stringed instrument I should say, that he 
never needeH tuning ; the strings are perfectly ready 
at any moment; you have only to touch them and 
they will sound harmoniously the genuine music of 
sentiment. 

48. Individuality of manners. — Stroke of descrip- 
tion of 's manners, whem in the most advan- 
tageous form. " He is neither vulgar nor genteel, 
nor any compound of these two kinds of vulgarity. 



178 poster's thoughts. 

He has the manners of no class, but something of a 
quite different order. His manners are a part of his 
soul, like the style of a writer of genius. His man- 
ners belong to the individual. He makes you think 
neither of clown nor gentleman — hnt of man. 

49. Discrimination of character. — (Character of 
one of my acquaintance, whom a friend was descri- 
bing as melancholy.) " No ; her feelings are rather 
fretted than melancholy." 

50. Description of character. — (Feature of the 
character of one of my friends.) " Cautious without 
suspicion, and discriminating without fastidiousness." 

51. Description of character. — (Touch of descrip- 
tion of a young woman in the lower ranks, not cul- 
tivated into a girl of sense, yet not so thoughtlessly 
vacant as the common vulgar.) " She has notions^ 

52. Description of character. — lElgo. There is a 
want of continuity in your social character. You 
seem broken into fragments. H. Well, I sparkle in 
frao-ments. Eso. But how much better to shine 
whole, like a mirror ". 

53. Effect of amusements. — Against amusements, 
defended on- the plea of necessary relaxation. I 
maintain that excitement is excitability too. An an- 
imated, affecting interest, supplies to the mind more 
than it consumes. The further a man advances in 
the ardor that belongs to a noble employment and 
object, the more mightily he lives. Other men will per- 
haps advance with him to a certain point, and there 
they stop — he goes on ; now the ratio of his progress 
and his animation is comparatively greater on that 
far-advanced ground beyond where they left him, 
than within an equal space in the earlier part of the 
course. The mind inspired with this enthusiasm as- 
serts its grandeur. It expands toward eternity, an- 
ticipative of its destiny. It lives, as Alonzo says, not 
by the vulgar calculation of months and years, but 
along the progression of sublime attainment, and 



FORMATION OF CHARACTER. 179 

amid the flames of an ardor which whirls it like a 
comet toward the sun. 

Would you be a stranger to this energy of soul — 
or, feeling it, would you prostitute it to seek a poor 
factitious interest in systematic trifling ? 

54. Power of bad habit. — I know from experience 
that habit can, in direct opposition to every convic- 
tion of the mind, and but little aided by the elements 
of temptation (such as present pleasure, &c.), induce 
a repetition of the most unworthy actions. The mind 
is weak where it has once given way. It is long be- 
fore -a principle restored can become as firm as one 
that has never been moved. It is as in the case of a 
mound of a reservoir : if this mound has in one place 
been broken, whatever care has been taken to make 
the repaired part as strong as possible, the probabil- 
ity is, that if it give away again, it will be in that 
place. 

55. The importance and necessity of a ruling pas- 
sion — that is, some grand object, the view of which 
kindles all the ardor the soul is capable of, to attain 
or accomplish it — possibility of cre«^m^ a ruling pas- 
sion asserted. 

56. Danger of an exclusive pursuit. — I have the 
highest opinion of the value of a ruling passion ; but 
if this passion monopolizes all the man, it requires 
that the object be a very comprehensive or a very 
dignified one, to save him from being ridiculous. 
The devoted antiquary, for instance, who is passion- 
ately fond of an old coin, an old button, or an old 
nail, is ridiculous. The man who is nothing but a 
musician, and recoo^nises nothinor jn the whole crea- 
tion but crotchets and quavers, is ridiculous, oo is 
the nothing but verbal critic, to whom the adjustment 
of a few insignificant particles in some ancient author 
appears a more important study than the grandest 
arrangement of politics oi" morals. Even the total 
devotee to the grand science, astronomy ^ incurs the 



180 poster's thoughts. 

same misfortune. Religion and morals have a noble 
pre-eminence here ; no man can become ridiculous 
by his passionate devotion to them ; even a specific 
direction of this passion will make a man sublime- 
witness iJoz^'a?*^/ ■s^^ecZ/zc, I say, and correctly, though, 
at the same time, ^7^3/ large plan of benevolence must 
be compreheusive, so to speak, of a large quantity of 
morals. 

57. Important points ascertained. — (1.) In my pres- 
ent circumstances, taken as they are, setting all the 
past aside, some one thing is absolutely the best thing 
I can design or do. (2.) My present sphere and 
course of action is most certainly not the best that 
can be. In proof of this assertion several conclusive 
reasons can be alleged. (3.) It strictly follows that, 
to change this sphere and this course, is decisively a 
part of my duty. (4.) And inasmuch as life is valu- 
able, and utility is its value, it is clear that the case is 
urgent, and that I am required to attempt this change 
with zeal and with speed. (5.) The greatest good \s 
to be my sovereign principle and object of action. 
(6.) Incidental principle : to make the plans I adopt 
for the improvement of my own mind, contribute 
equally, if possible, to the improvement of others (by 
writing letters, and otherwise). (7.) Is not this world 
a proper scene for a benevolent and ardent mind ? 
There are bodies to heal, minds to enlighten and re- 
form, social institutions to change, children to edu- 
cate. In all this is there nothing that I can dol ! ! 
(8.) One of these two things, viz., congenial society, 
and a sphere of urgency and action, seem absolutely 
necessary to save my energies from torpor or extinc- 
tion. If I could gain both ! (9.) Oh, how I repro- 
bate this indecision as to what character I will as- 
sume, and what designs I will att*;mpt ! (10.) I deem 
myself a man of capacity beyond the common; my 
plan of action ought therefore to include as little as 
possible of that which common capacity can perform 



FORMATION OF CHARACTER. 181 

as well as mine ; and as much as possible of what 
requires, and will educe, this superiority of ability 
which I attribute to myself. (11.) I want to extend, 
as it were, and augment my being and its interests; 
there is one mean of doing this, which, &c. 

58. Progressive formation of character overlooked. 
— I have observed that most ladies who have had 
what is considered as an education, have no idea of 
an education progressive through life. Having at- 
tained a certain measure of accomplishment, knowl- 
edge, manners, &c., they consider themselves as made 
up, and so take their station ; they are pictures which, 
being quite finished, are put in a frame — a gilded 
one, if possible — and hung up in permanence of 
beauty ! in permanence, that is to say, till Old Time, 
with his rude and dirty fingers, soil the charming 
colors. 

59. Power of popular intelligence and virtue. — A 
people advanced to such a state would make its moral 
power felt in a thousand ways, and every moment. 
This general augmentation of sense and right princi- 
ple would send forth, against all arrangements and in- 
veterate or more modern usages, of the nature of in- 
vidious exclusion, arbitrary repression, and the de- 
basement of gi'eat public interests into a detestable 
private traffic, an energy which could no more be 
resisted than the power of the sun when he advances 
in the spring to annihilate the relics and vestiges of 

the winter There is, indeed, a hemisphere of 

** gross darkness over the people ;" it may be possi- 
ble to withhold from it long the illumination of the 
Bun ; but in the meantime it has been rent by porten- 
tous lights and flashes, which have excited a thought 
and agitation not to be stilled by the continuance of 
the gloom. There have come in on the popular mind 
some ideas, which the wisest of those who dread or 
hate their effect there, look around in vain for the 
means of expelling. And these glimpses of partial 

16 



182 Foster's thoughts. 

intelligence, these lights of dubious and possibly de- 
structive direction amid the night, will continue to 
prompt and lead that mind, with a hazard which can 
cease only with the opening upon it of the true day- 
light of knowledge. 

60. Moral illumination intercepted hy popular ig- 
norance. — How should a man in the rudeness of an 
intellect left completely ignorant of truth in general, 
have a luminous apprehension of its most important 
division ? There could not be in men's minds a phe- 
nomenon similar to what we image to ourselves of 
Goshen in the preternatural night of Egypt, a space 
of perfect light, defined out by a precise limit amid 
the general darkness. . . . These latter, so environed, 
would be in a condition too like that of a candle in 
the mephitic air of a vault. 

61. A soul conJi7ied by impervious pri&on-walls of 
ignorance. — We can imagine this ill-fated spirit, es- 
pecially if by nature of the somewhat finer tempera- 
ment, thus detached from all vital connexion, secluded 
from the whole universe, and enclosed as by a prison- 
wall — we can imagine it sometimes moved with an 
indistinct longing for its appropriate interests ; and 
going round and round by this dark, dead, wall, to 
seek for any spot where there might be a chance of 
escape, or any crevice where a living element for the 
soul transpires ; and then, as feeling it all in vain, de- 
jectedly resigning its-elf again to its doom. 

^2. Affecting retrospective view of the ignorance of 
ike world. — We of the present time are convicted of 
exceeding stupidity, if we think it not worth while to 
go a number of ages back to contemplate the mass 
of mankind, the wide world of beings such as our- 
selves, sunk in darkness and wretchedness, and to 
consider what it is that is taught by so melancholy an 
exhibition. What is to give fullness of evidence to 
an instruction, if a world be too narrow ? what is to 
give weight, if a W(jrld be too light ? 



FORMATION OF CHARACTER. 183 

63. Freedom a%d spontaneous emanation of knowl- 
edge. — Knowledge, which was formerly a thing to be 
searched and dug for "as for hid treasures," has 
seemed at last beginning to effloresce through the 
surface of the ground on all sides of us, 

64. Mind extinguislied by the hody. — By the very 
constitution of the human nature, the mind seems half 
to belong to the senses, it is so shut within them, af- 
fected by them, dependent on them for pleasure, as 
well as for activity, and impotent but through their 
medium. 

65. Knowledge lihe the sun. — To say that under 
long absence of the sun any tract of terrestrial nature 
7nust infallihly be reduced to desolation, is not to say 
or imply that under the benignant influence of that 
luminary the same region must, as necessarily and 
unconditionally, be a scene of beauty ; but the only 
hope, for the only possibility, is for the field visited 
by much of that sweet influence. 

66. Secular knowledge associated with religious.— 
They will talk of giving the people an education spe- 
cifically religious ; a training to conduct them on 
through a close avenue, looking straight before them 
to descry distant spiritual objects, while shut out from 
all the scene right and left, by fences that tell them 
there is nothing that concerns them there. There 
may be rich and beautiful fields of knowledge, but 
they are not to be trampled by vulgar feet. 

67. Esti7nate of the influence of education. — Like 
trying to specify, in brief terms, what a highly-im- 
proved portion of the ground, in a tract rude and 
sterile if left to itself, has received from cultivation; 
an attempt which would carry back the imagination 
through a progression of states and aj^pearances, in 
which the now fertile spots, and picture-like scenes, 
and commodious passes, and pleasant habitations, 
may or must have existed in the advance from the 
original rudeness. . . If, while these benefits are com- 



184 poster's thoughts. 

ing so numerously in his sight, like an irregular crowd 
of loaded fruit-trees, one partially seen behind the 
offered luxury of another, and others still descried, 
through intervals, in the distances, he can imagine 
them all devastated and swept away from him, leav- 
ino- him in a scene of mental desolation — and if he 
shall then consider that nearly such is the state of the 
great multitude — he will surely feel that a deep com- 
passion is due to so depressed a condition of exist- 
ence. ... A few false notions, such as could hardly 
fail to take the place of absent truth in the ignorant 
mind, however crude they might be, and however 
deficient for constituting a full system of error, would 
be sure to dilate themselves so as to have an opera- 
tion at all the points where truth is wanting. . . . The 
dark void of ignorance, instead of remaining a mere 
negation, becomes filled with agents of perversion 
and destruction ; as sometimes the gloomy apartments 
of a deserted mansion have become a den of robbers 

and murderers The conjunction of truths is of 

the utmost importance for preserving the genuine 
tendency, and securing the appropriate efficacy, of 
each. It is an unhappy "lack of knowledge" when 
there is not enough to preserve, to what there -is of 
it, the honest, beneficial quality of knowledge. How 
many of the follies, excesses, and crimes, in the course 
of the world, have taken their pretended warrant from 
some fragment of truth, dissevered from the connex- 
ion of truths indispensable to its right operation, and 
in that detached state easily perverted into coales- 
cence with the most pernicious principles, which con- 
cealed and gave effect to their malignity under the 
falsified authority of a truth. 

68. Prevailing perversion of conscience. — Every 
serious observer has been struck and almost shocked 
to observe, in what a very small degree conscience 
is a necessary attribute of the human creature ; and 
how nearly a nonentity the whole system of moral 



FORMATION OP CHARACTER. 185 

principles may be, as to any recognition of it by an 
unadapted spirit. While that system is of a sub- 
stance veritable and eternal, and stands forth in its 
exceeding^ breadth, marked with the strono-est char- 
acters and prominences, it has to these persons hardly 
the reality or definiteness of a shadow, except in a 
few matters, if we may so express it, of the grossest 
bulk. There must be glaring evidence of somethincr 
bad in what is done, or questioned whether to be 
done, before conscience will come to its duty, or give 
proof of its existence. There must be a violent alarm 
of mischief or danger before this drowsy and igno- 
rant magistrate will interfere. 
1G» 



186 Foster's thoughts. 



CHAPTER VIII. 

YOUTH ITS ADVANTAGES AND PERILS DOMESTIC 

LIFE AND VIRTUES EDUCATION OF CHILDREN. 

1. Active powers of youth. — How precious a thing 
is youthful energy ; if only it could be preserved en- 
tirely englohed, as it w^ere, wdthin the bosom of the 
young adventurer, till he can come and offer it forth 
a sacred emanation in yonder temple of truth and 
virtue ; but, alas ! all along as he goes toward it, he 
advances through an avenue, formed by a long line 
of tempters and demons on each side, all prompt to 
touch him with their conductors, and draw this divine 
electric element, with which he is charged, away ! 

2. Temptations of youth. — It would be a fine posi- 
tion, doubtless, for a man to stand on a spot where 
there was a powerful action of all the elements al- 
most close around him ; the earth he stood on bloom- 
ing with flowers ; water thrown in impetuous falls 
and torrents on the one side — some superb fire near 
at hand on the other — and the winds whirling, as if 
to exasperate them both ; but he would need look 
carefully to his movements, especially if informed 
that others carelessly standing there had been whirled 
into destruction; or if he saw the fact. Let young 
persons ubserve what is actually becoming of those 
who surrender themselves to their passions and wild 
propensities. What numbers ! Then in themselves 
observe seriously whither these inward traitors and 
tempters really tend j and then think whether sober- 



YOUTH. 187 

ness of mind be not a pearl of great price, and wheth- 
er there can be any such thing without a systematic 
self-government. 

3. Successive periods of life soon passed. — Let it not 
be forgotten that youth will soon be passed away. 
Nay, there is even the wish in its possessors for the 
larger portion of it to haste away ! A most striking 
illustration of the vanity of our state on earth. It 
rapidly runs on to the longed-for age of twenty. But 
there it retains its impetus of motion, and runs be- 
yond that point as fast as it ran ihither. With what 
magical fleetness it passes away till it loses its quality, 
and life is youth no more ! 

4. Disregard of the exj^erience of oth ers an ill omen. 
It is a bad sign in youth to be utterly heedless of the 
dictates of the experience of persons more advanced 
in life. It is, indeed, impossible for youth to enter 
fully into the spirit of such experience. But to de- 
spise it, to fancy it proceeds entirely from disappoint- 
ment, mortified feeling, moroseness, or the mere 
coldness of age, augurs ill — and so these young per- 
sons themselves will think, when they, in their turn, 
come to inculcate the lessons of their more aged ex- 
perience. 

5. The harvest of later life must correspond with the 
seeding of youth. — If there be a vain, giddy, thought- 
less, ill-improved youth, the effects of it will infalli- 
bly come in after-life. If there be a neglected un- 
derstanding, a conscience feebly and rudely constitu- 
ted, good principles but slightly fixed or even appre- 
hended, an habitual levity of spirit, a chase of frivolities, 
a surrender to the passions — the natural consequences 
of these will follow. 

6. Time is the greatest of tyrants. — As we go on 
toward age, he taxes oui health, our limbs, our facul- 
ties, our strength, and our features. 

7. Youth is not like a new garment, which we can 
keep fresh and fair by wearing sparingly. Youths 



188 poster's thoughts. 

while we have it, we must wear daily, and it will fast 

wear away. 

8. The retrospect on youtli is too often like looknig 
back en what was a fair and promising country, but 
is now desolated by an overwhelming torrent, from 
which we have just escaped. 

9. Or it is like visiting the grave of a friend whom 
we had injured, and are precluded by his death from 
the possibility of making him an atonement. 

10. The whole systern of life goes on this principle 
of selling oneself: then the question of estimates 
should for ever recur — " My time for this V — " and 

this r 

11. Price of pleasure. — All pleasure must be bought 
at the price of pain. The difference between false 
pleasure and true is just this : for the true, the price 
is paid before you enjoy it; for the false, after you 
enjoy it. . . tt 

12. Deplored neglect of culture of youth. — How 
much 1 regret to see so generally abandoned to the 
weeds of vanity that fertile and vigorous space of life, 
in which might be planted the oaks and fruit-trees of 
enlightened principle and virtuous habit, which, grow- 
ing up, would yield to old age an enjoyment, a glory, 
and a shade ! 

13. Insensibility to the approach of old age. — It is 
a most amazing thing that young people never con- 
sider they shall grow old. I would, to young women^ 
especially, renew the monition of this anticipation ev- 
ery hour of every day. I wish we could make all 
the criers, watchmen, ballad-singers, and even par- 
rots, repeat to them continually, " You will be an 
old woman — you will — and you." Then,if they have 
left themselves to depend, almost entirely, as most of 
them do, on exterior and casual accommodations, 
they will be wretchedly neglected. No beaux will 
then draw a chair close to them, and sweetly simper, 



YOUTH. 189 

and whisper that the bowers of paradise did not afford 
so delightful a place. 

14. True value of youth. — (Conclusion of a moral, 
monitory letter to a youjig acquaintance.) — I scarce- 
ly need to remark on the value of youth, with all its liv- 
ing energy ; but I may express my regret at seeing all 
around me, a possession so sweet and fair, so miser- 
ably poisoned and stained. I have only a question 
or two for you. Why do you think it happy to he 
young 1 why 1 When you shall be advanced tow- 
ard the conclusion of life, why will you think it happy 
to have heen young % Is there the least possibility or 
danger that then you may not think so at all ? Why 
do you lo^ with pleasure on the scene of coming 
life ] Does the pleasure spring from a sentiment less 
noble than the hope of securing, as you go on, those 
inestimable attainments, which will not decay with 
declining hfe, and may consequently set age, and time, 
and dissolution, at defiance ? You gladly now see 
life before you, but there is a moment which you are 
destined to meet when you will have passed across 
it, and will find yourself at the farther edge. Are 
you perfectly certain that at that moment you will 
be in possession of something that will enable you 
not to care that life is gone % If you should not, what 
then ] 

15. Youth improved makes old age happy. — How 
often you see in the old persons who spent so gay 
a youth, an extinction of all the fire ! Sometimes 
they try to brighten up for a moment, but they be- 
tray an exhaustion and desertion. They are sensible 
that life is nearly gone by. But its close they can 
not bear to think of, no more than when they were 
young; but have no longer the youthful means of 
driving away the thought. They are sometimes pen- 
sively gloomy ; often peevishly and morosely so. Oh ! 
had they but in early life consecrated the animation 
of their spirits, by giving a larger share of it to God, 



190 Foster's thoughts. 

to reserve it for tliem ! Had they often tempered 
and repressed the vivacity of their hearts, by solemn 
thoughts of hereafter, by a vigorous appHcation to 
wdsdom ! they might have been fired with spirit and 
animation now, which not the approach of death 
could chill or quench ! nay, would have burnt the 
brighter in that formidable atmosphere. 

1 6 . Philosophy of tlie happiness of domestic and all 
Jiujnan alliances. — 1 have often contended that at- 
tachments between friends and lovers can not be se- 
cured strong, and perpetually augmenting, except by 
the intervention of some interest which is, not person- 
al, but which is common to them both, and toward 
which their attentions and passions are directed with 
still more animation than even toward each other. 
If the whole attention is to be directed, and the whole 
sentimentalism of the heart concentrated on each 
other ; if it is to be an unvaried, " I toward you, and 
"you toward me,'" as if each were to the other, not an 
ally or companion joined to pursue happiness, but 
the very end and object — happiness itself ; if it is the 
circumstance of reciprocation itself, and not what is 
reciprocated, that is to supply perennial interest to 
affection; if it is to be mind still reflecting back the 
gaze of mind, and reflecting it again, cherub toward 
cherub, as on the ark, and no luminary or glory be- 
tween them to supply beams and warmth to both- — 
I foresee that the hope will disappoint, the plan will 
fail. Affection, on these terms, v/ill be reduced to 
the condition of a famishing animal's stomach, the 
opposite sides of which, for want of pabulum intro- 
duced, meet and digest, and consume each other. 
Attachment must burn in oxygen, or it will go out; 
and, by oxygen, I mean a mutual admiration and 
pursuit of virtue, improvement, utility, the pleasures 
of taste, or some other interesting concern, which 
shall be the elemen: of their commerce, and make 



DOMESTIC LIFE. . 191 

tliem love each other not orilyfor each other, but as 
devotees to some third object w^hich they both adore 
The affections of the soul will feel a dissatisfaction 
and a recoil if, as they go forth, they are entirely in- 
tercepted and stopped by any object that is not ideal; 
they wish rather to be like rays of light glancing on 
the side of an object, and then sloping and passing 
away ; they wish the power of elongation, through a 
series of interesting points, on toward infinity. 

Human society is avast circle of beings on a plain, 
in the midst of which stands the shrine of goodness 
and happiness, inviting all to approach ; now the 
attached pairs in this circle should not be continually 
looking on each other, but should turn their faces 
very often toward this central object, and as they 
advance, they will, like radii from the circumference 
to the centre, continually become closer to each oth- 
er, as they approximate to their mutual and ultimate 
object. ' 

17. Growing strength of mutual affections. — One 
should think that a tender friendship might become 
more intimate and entire the older the parties grew; 
as two trees planted near each other, the higher they 
grow and the more widely they spread- — intermingle 
more completely their branches and their foliage. 

18. Necessities of man's social nature. — We called 
on an affable, worthy, pious woman rather beginning 
to be aged (never married), who lives quite alone. 
Asked her whether she had not sometimes painful cra- 
vings for society. She said she had not; and that her 
habit was so settled to solitude, that she often felt the 
occasional hour spent with some other human beings 
tedious and teasing. We could not explain this fact. 
Long conversation, in walking en, respecting the so- 
cial nature of man. Why is this being, that looks at 
me and talks, whose bosom is waiTU, and whose na- 
ture and wants resemble my own — necessary to me? 
This kindred beiner whom I love, is more to me than 



.^ 



192 POSTER*S THOUGHTS. 

all yonder stars of heaven, and than all the inanimate 
objects on earth. Delightful necessity of my nature ! 
But to what a world of disappointments and vexations 
is this social feeling liable, and how few are made 
happy by it, in any such degree as I picture to my- 
self and long for ! 

19. Disturbances of mutual confidence and affection 
not necessary to confirm them. — When expressing a 
conjecture that, as in the previous course of love, so 
after marriage, it may be that reconciliations after 
disagreements are accompanied by a peculiar fas- 
cinating tenderness — I was told by a very sensible 
experimentaHst that the possibility of this feeling 
continues but for a while', and that it will be ex- 
tremely perceptible when the period is come, that no 
such felicitous charm will compensate for domestic 
misunderstandings. /, however, can not but think 
that when this period is come, the sentimental en- 
thusiasm is greatly subsided — that its most enchant- 
ing interest is, indeed, quite gone off. 

20. Incipient domestic disputes greatly to he dread- 
ed. — A very respectable widow, remarking on mat- 
rimonial quarrels, said that the first quarrel that goes 
the length of any harsh or contemptuous language, 
is an unfortunate epoch in married life, for that the 
delicate respectfulness being thus once broken down, 
the same kind of language much more easily comes 
afterward; there is a feeling of having less to love 
than before. 

21. How far should mutual confidence he extended 1 
— Whether two much-attached friends, suppose a 
married pair, might adopt a system of confidence so 
entire, as to be total confessors to each other; dis- 
closing, for instance, at the end of each day, all the 
most unworthy or ungracious ideas and feelings that 
had passed through their minds during the course 
of it, both with respect to eacV other, and any other 
question or thing ' 



DOMESTIC LIFE. 193 

22. Delicate concealment of ignorance or error of 
a companion. — One has been amused sometimes, 
when one of the domestic associates has advanced 
an opinion, or recited a supposed fact, which the other 
has thought extremely absurd, to see that other in 
haste to express his or her contempt of such folly of 
opinion, or credulity of belief, instead of silently 
sliding the circumstance or the subject out of con- 
versation, or mildly expressing that he or she can not 
entirely concur in opinion or belief, and endeavoring 
to make as good a retreat as possible for the associ- 
ate's ignorance or weakness. I say, one has been 
amused; but in some instances one has felt a painful 
sympathy with the person so treated with scorn by an 
intimate relative, and before a number of witnesses, 
each of whom would have politely let pass the un- 
fortunate remark or narration. Striking instances 
in Mr. and Mrs. , and Dr. and Mrs. . 

23. In domestic disputes, a want of sentiment in the 
parties, greatly diminishes suffering. — Among mar- 
ried persons of the common size and texture of minds, 
the grievances they occasion one another are rather 
feelings of irritated temper than of hurt sentiment ; 
an important distinction. Of the latter perhaps they 
were never capable, or perhaps have long since worn 
out the capability. Their pain, therefore, is far less 
deep and acute than a sentimental observer would 
suppose or would in the same circumstances, with 
their own feelings, suffer. 

24. In congenial domestic alliances a hopeless pre- 
dicament. — A man or woman with a stupid or per- 
verse partner, but still hoping to see this partner be- 
come all that is desired, is like a man with a wooden 
leg wishing it might become a vital one, and some- 
times for a moment fancying this almost possible. 

25. Inconsiderate domestic alliances. — Their court- 
ship was carried on in poetry. Alas ! many an en- 

17 



194 Foster's thc ughts. 

iamored pair have courted in poetry, and after mar- 
riage, lived in prose. 

26. Early education greatly defective. — Education 
always appears to me as the one thing which, taken 
generally, is the most vilely managed on earth. 

27. Undue restraint of children to he deprecated.-— 
A very important principle in education, never to 
confine children long to any one occupation or place. 
It is totally against their nature, as indicated in all 
their voluntary exercises. Was very much struck 
with this consideration to-day. I was incommoded 
a while by three or four children in front of the 
house, who made an obsteperous noise, from the glee 
of some amusement that seemed to please them ex- 
ceedingly. But I kiiew that they would not be pleased 
very long ; accordingly in about half an hour they 
were tired of sport, and went off in quest of some- 
thing else. I inferred the impossibility, in the disci- 
pline of education, of totally restraining the innate 
propensity, and the folly of attempting it. 

28. Education of children in simple Jiahits import- 
ant. — Interesting conversation with Mr. S. on edu- 
cation. Astonishment and grief at the folly, espe- 
cially in times like the present, of those parents who 
totally forget, in the formation of their children's 
habits, to inspire that vigorous independence which 
acknowledges the smallest possible number of wants, 
and so avoids or triumphs over the negation of a 
thousand indulgences, by always having been taught 
and accustomed to do without them. " How many 
things," says Socrates, " I do not want." 

29. Children's hall-^-o. detestable vanity. Mamma 
solicitously busy for several weeks previously, with 
all the assistance too of milliners ^nd. tasteful friends, 
with lengthened dissertations, for the sole purpose 
of equipping two or three children to appear in one 
of these miserable exhibitions. The whole business 



EDUCATION OF CHILDREN. 195 

seems a contnvance, expressly intended to concen- 
trate to a focus of preternatural heat and stimulus 
every vanity and frivolity of the time, in order to 
blast for ever the simplicity of their little souls, and 
kindle their vain propensities into a thousand times 
the force that mere nature could ever have supplied. 

30. Proper companionsJiip of children important. 
— Observed with regret one or two children of a 
respectable family mingling in this group with sev- 
eral little dirty, profane blackguards. Qu. As to the 
best method of preventing all communication of chil- 
dren meant to be educated in the best manner, with 
all other children, whether of the vulgar class, or the 
genteel, which will do as much mischief as the vulgar. 

31. True scope and ai7?i of ediccation. — Judicious 
education anxiously displays to its pupils its own in- 
sufficiency and confined scope, and tells them that 
this whole earth can be but a place of tuition, till it 
become either a depopulated ruin, or an Elysium of 
perfect and happy beings. Its object is to qualify 
them for entering with advantage into the greater 
school where the whole of life is to be spent, and its 
last emphatic lesson is to enforce the necessity of an 
ever-watchful discipline, which must be imposed by 
each individual self, when exempted from all external 
authority. The privileges, the hazards, and the ac- 
countableness of this maturity of life, and the con- 
siornment to one's self, make it an interestinsf situa- 
tion. It is to be intrusted with the care of a being 
infinitely dear, whose destiny is yet unknown, v/hose 
faculties are not fully expanded, whose interests we 
but dimly ascertain, whose happiness we may throw 
away, and whose animation we had rather indulge to 
revel than train to labor. 

32. Fearful responsibility of parents. — Will en- 
deavor not to forget the impressive lessons on educa- 
tion, both as to the importance and the mode of it, 
supplied by Mr, 's family, the best school for in- 



196 poster's thoughts. 

struction on this subject I ever saw. In tliat family 
the whole system and all the paits of it are so correct- 
ly and transcendently had, that it is only necessary 
to adopt a directly opposite plan in every point to be 
exactly right. 

I suppose it never occurs to parents that to throw 
vilely-qducated young people on the world is, in- 
dependently of the injury to the young people them- 
selves, a positive crime, and of very great magnitude ; 
as great for instance, as burning their neighbor's 
house, or poisoning the water in his well. In point- 
ing out to them what is wrong, even if they acknowl- 
edge the justness of the statement, one can not make 
them feel a sense o^ guilt, as in other proved charges. 
That Xhcylove their children extenuates to their con- 
sciences every parental folly that may at last produce 
in the children every desperate vice. 

33. Rules for early religious education. — Perhaps 
one of the most prudential rules respecting the en- 
forcement on the minds of children of the conviction 
that they are accountable to an all-seeing though un- 
seen Governor, and liable to the punishment of ob- 
stinate guilt in a future state, is, to take opportuni- 
ties of impressing this idea the most cogently, at 
seasons when the children are not lying under any 
blame or displeasure, at moments of serious kindness 
on the part of the parents, and serious inquisitiveness 
on the part of the children, leaving in some degree the 
conviction to have its own effect, greater or less, in 
each particular instance of guilt, according to the 
greater or less degree of aggravation which the child's 
own conscience can be made secretly to acknowledge 
in that guilt. And another obvious rule will be, that 
when he is to be solemnly reminded of these religious 
sanctions and dangers in immediate connexion with 
an e^ctual instance of criminality in his conduct, the 
instance should be one of the most serious of his faults^ 
that will bear the utmost seriousness of such an ad- 



EDUCATION OF CHII-DREN. 197 

monition. As to how early in life this doctrine may 
be communicated, there needs no more precise rule 
than this ; that it may be as early as well-instructed 
children are found to show any signs of prolonged 
or returning inquisitiveness concerning the supreme 
cause of all that they behold, and concerning what 
becomes of persons known to them in their neighbor- 
hood, whom they find passing, one after another, 
through the change called death, about which their 
Quriosity will not be at all satisfied by merely learn- 
ing its name There is an absolute necessity of 

presenting these ideas in a correct though inadequate 
form as early as possible to the mind, to prevent their 
being fixed there in a fonn that shall be absurd and 
injurious. .... They may be taught to apprehend it 
as an awful reality, that they are peipetually under 
his inspection ; and as a certainty, that they must at 
length appear before him in judgment, and find, in 
another life, the consequences of what they are in 
spirit and conduct here. It is to be impressed on 
them, that his -will is the supreme law; that his dec- 
larations are the most momentous truth known on 
earth ; and his favor and condemnation the greatest 
good and evil. 

34. Said of a lady who infamously spoilt her son — 
a most perverse child. — She will have her reward ; 
she cultivates a night-shade, and is destined to eat its 
poisoned berries. 

35. Apprehensions of parents for the welfare of 
their children. — I constantly and systematically re- 
gard this world with such horror, as a place for the 
risingr human beinsfs to come into, that it is an em-- 
phatical satisfaction, I may say pleasure, to me (ex- 
cept in a few cases of rare promise), to hear of their 
prematurely leaving it. I have innumerable times 
been amazed that parents should not, in this view, be 
greatly consoled in their loss. Let them look at this 
world ! with sin, temptations, snares of the devil, bad 

17* 



19S poster's thoughts. 

examples, seducing companions, disasters, vexations, 
dishonors, and afflictions, all over it; and their chil- 
dren to enter the scene with a radically corrupt na- 
ture, adapted to receive the mischief of all its worst 
influences and impressions ; let them look at all this, 
and then say, deliberately, whether it he not well 
that their children are saved these dreadful dangers! 
Let them behold what the vast majority of children 
do actually become — have actually become, in ma- 
ture life ; many of them, millions of them ! decided- 
ly bad and wretched, and causes of what is bad and 
wretched around them; and, short of this worst event, 
an immense majority of them careless of religion, sal- 
vation, eternity ! T repeat, let them look at all this, 
and then ask themselves, whether it be' not a vain 
presumption that exactly tJieir childien, nay, every 
parent in his turn, my children, are sure to be ex- 
ceptions. 



PRArLTY OP LIFE. 199 



CHAPTER IX. 

HUMAN LIFE : ITS FRAILTY AND BREVITY FUTURE 

LIFE : ITS MYSTERIES AND REVELATIONS—PERSUA- 
SIVES TO A CHRISTIAN LIFE. 

1. Reason of the undue influence of tilings seen. — 
The power of objects to interest the affections, de- 
pends on their being objects of sight. The affections 
often seem reluctant to admit objects to their inter- 
nal communion except through the avenues of the 
senses. The objects must be, as it w^ere, authenti- 
cated by the senses, must first occupy and please them 
— or they are regarded by the inner faculties as some- 
thing strange, foreign, out of our sympathies, or un- 
real. . . . The objects which we can see, give a more 
positive and direct impression of reality ; there can 
be no dubious surmise whether they exist or not ; the 
sense of their presence is more absolute. When an 
object is seen before me, or beside me, I am instantly 
in all the relations of being present ; I can not feel 
and act as if no such object were there ; I can not by 
an act of my mind put it away from me Visi- 
ble objects, when they have been seen, can be clearly 
kept in mind in absence — during long periods — at 
the greatest distance. We can revert to the time 
when they were seen. We can have a lively image j 
seem to be looking at it still. But the great objects 
of faith having never been seen, the mind has no ex- 
press type to revert to. The idea of them is to be 
still again and again formed anew ; fluctuates and 
varies ; is brighter and dimmer ; alternates as bt»- 
tween substance and shadow. 



200 Foster's thoughts. 

2. Intimations of the transitoriness of life. — If tlio 
soul would expand itself, and with a lively sensibility 
to receive upon it the significance, the glancing inti- 
mation, the whispered monition of all things that are 
adapted to remind it of the fact — what a host of ideas 
would strike it ! Then we should hardly see a shadow 
pass, or a vapor rise, or a flower fade, or a leaf fall, 
still less a human visage withered in age, but we 
should have a thought of the transient continuance 
of our life. 

3. Wan fades as a leaf — The infinite masses of 
foliage, which unfolded so beautifully in vegetable 
life, in the spring, and have adorned our landscape 
during the summer, have faded, fallen, and perished. 
We have beheld the " grace of the fashion" of them 
disclosed, continuing awhile bright in the sunshine, 
and gone for ever. Now we are admonished not to 
see the very leaves fade, without oeing reminded that 

something else IB, also fading Can any of us say 

they have had, during the recent season, as distinct 
and prolonged a reflection on the fact that our own 
mortal existence is fading, as we have had a percep- 
tion of the fading and extinction of vegetable life ] It 
would seem as if the continued pressure of ill health, 
or the habitual spectacle of sickness and decline in 
our friends, were necessary in order to keep us re- 
minded of the truth which is expressed in the text. 

4. Man fades while Nature blooms. — Amid this 
glowing life of the vernal season, there are languor, 
and sickness, and infirm old age, and death ! While 
Nature smiles, there are many pale countenances 
that do not. Sometimes you have met, slowly pacing 
the green meadow or the garden, a figure emaciated 
by illness, or feeble with age ; and were the more 
forcibly struck by the spectacle as seen amid a luxu- 
riance of life. For a moment, you have felt as if all 
the living beauty faded or receded from around, in 
the shock of the contrast. You may have gone into 



FRAILTY OF LIFE. 201 

a house besefwith roses and all the pride of spring, 
to see a person lingering and sinking in the last fee- 
bleness of mortality. You may have seen a funeral 
train passing through a flowery avenue. The ground 
which is the depository of the dead, bears, not the 
less for that, its share of the beauty of spring. The 
great course of Nature pays no regard to the partic- 
ular circumstances of man — no suspension, no sym- 

5. Winter, though denying other gifts, yields a 
grave. — Look at the earth, speaking generally ! look 
at the trees ! an obdurate negation — an appearance 
of having ceased to be for us — under a mighty inter- 
dict of Heaven ! We might nearly as well go to the 
graves of the dead to ask for sympathy and aid. The 
ground seems not willing to yield us anything but a 
grave ; and that it is yielding every day to numbers 
to whom it would have yielded nothing else ! Stri- 
king consideration, that for this service the earth is 
always ready ! How many graves for the dying it 
will afford during these months, in which it will af- 
ford no sustenance to the living ! Would it not be 
a most solemn manifestation, if, in the living crowd, 
we could discern those to whom the earth, the ground, 
has but one thing more to supply 1 

6. Much of human decay not visible, — The most, 
decayed and faded portion of the living world is 
much less in sight than the fresh and vigorous. Think 
how many infirm, sick, debilitated, languishing, and 
almost dying persons there are, that are rarely or 
never out in public view — not met in our streets, 
roads, or places of resort — not in our religious as- 
semblies 1 And then ** out of sight, out of mind," in 
a great degree ! Thus we look at the living world 
so as not to read the destiny written on every fore- 
head, and in this thoughtlessness are the more apt to 
forget our own. 

7. TJnperceived succession of human generations,—' 



202 Foster's thoughts. 

Human beings are continually going and coming, so 
that, though all die, man in his vast assemblage is al- 
ways here The order of the world is that men 

be withdrawn one by one, one here and one there, 
leaving the mighty mass, to general appearance, still 
entire — except in the case of vast and desolating ca- 
lamities. Thus we see nothing parallel to the gen- 
eral autumnal fading of the leaf. More like the ever- 
greens, which lose their leaves by individuals, and 
still maintain their living foliage — to the thoughtless 
spectator, the human race is presented under such a 
fallacious appearance as if it always lived. 

8. Uncertain continuance of life. — Life is expendi- 
ture : we have it but as continually losing it ; we have 
no use of it, but as continually wasting it. Suppose 
a man confined in some fortress, under the doom to 
stay there till his death; and suppose there is there 
for his use a dark reservoir of water, to which it is 
certain none can ever be added. He knows, sup- 
pose, that the quantity is not very great ; he can not 
penetrate to ascertain how much, but it may be very 
little. He has drawn from it by means of a fountain 
a good tvhile already, and draws from it every day ; 
but how would he feel each time of drawing, and 
each time of thinking of it ] not as if he had a peren- 
nial spring to go to ; not, " I have a reservoir — I may 
beat ease." No! but, " I had water yesterday; I 
have water to-day ; but my having had it, and my 
having it to-day, is the very cause that I shall not have 
it on some day that is approaching. At the same 
time I am compelled to this fatal expenditure !" So 
of our mortal, transient life ! 

9. The records of time are emphatically the history 
of death. — A whole review of the world, from this 
hour to the as^e of Adam, is but the vision of an infi- 
nite multitude of dying men. During the more quiet 
intervals, we perceive individuals falling into the dust, 
through all classes and all lands. Then come floods 



FRAILTY OP LIFE. 803 

and con^agi'ations, famines, and pestilence, and earth- 
quakes, 'ind battles, which leave the most crowded 
and social scenes silent. The human race resemble 
the withered foliage of a wide forest ; while the air 
is calm, we perceive single leaves scattering here and 
there from the oranches ; but sometimes a tempest 
or a whirlwind precipitates thousands in a moment. 
It is a moderate computation which supposes a hun- 
dred thousand millions to have died since the exit of 
righteous Abel. Oh, it is true that ruin hath entered 
the creation of God ! that sin has made a breach in 
that innocence which fenced man round with immor- 
tality ! and even now the great spoiler is ravaging 
the world. As mankind have still sunk into the dark 
gulf of the past, history has given buoyancy to the 
most wonderful of their achievements and characters, 
and caused them to float down the stream of time to 
our own age. , . . What an affecting scene is a dying 
world ! Who is that destroying angel whom the Eter- 
nal has employed to sacrifice all our devoted race ] 
Advancing onward over the whole field of time, he 
hath smitten the successive crowds of our hosts with 
death ; and to us he now approaches nigh. Some of 
our friends have trembled, and sickened, and expired, 
at the signals of his coming ; already we hear the 
thunder of his wings: soon his eye of fire will throw 
mortal fainting on all our companies ; his prodigious 
form will to us blot out the sun, and his sword sweep 
us all from the earth ; " for the living know that they 
shall die." 

10. Memorials of advancing life, — It is not the be- 
ing aware of any physical or mental decline, but a 
remoteness in my retrospects ; the disappearance by 
death of so many of my elders, and even coevals; 
the dispersion and changed condition of my early 
companions ; the alteration of a great part of the 
economy of my feelings ; the five feet ten inches alli- 
tudc of persons whom I recollect as infants when /" 



J^Ol poster's thoughts. 

first readied that altitude ; and the very sound and 
appearance of the wovd. forty (to the number meant 
in which word I shall soon have a very particular re- 
lation) — these, and I suppose many more things, con- 
cur to make me feel how far I have gone already 
past the meridian hour of the short day of life. 

11. The aged — presages of old age. — Like the last 
few faded leaves, lingering and fluttering on a tree. 

Let them think what they feel to be gone — 

freshness of life ; vernal prime ; overflowing spirits ; 
elastic, bounding vigor; insuppressible activity; quick, 
ever- varying emotion ; delightful unfolding of the fac- 
ulties; the sense of more and more power of both 
body and spirit; the prospect as if life were entire 
before them ; and all overspread with brightness and 
fair colors ! . . . . There are circumstances that will 
not let them forget whereabouts they are in life ; feel- 
ings of positive infirmity; diminished power of exer- 
tion ; gray hairs ; failure of sight ; besetting pains ; 
apprehensive caution against harm and inconveni- 
ence ; often what are called nervous affections ; slight 
injuries to the body far less easily repaired. 

12. Old age the safer period of Ufe. — And, consid- 
ering our age, and now established principles, views, 
and habits, it is no slight satisfaction to hope that we 
are now passed safe beyond the most unsteady, haz- 
ardous, and tempting periods, feelings, and scenes of 
life. Not that we can ever be safe but by Divine 
preservation ; but still it is no trifling advantage that 
some of the most pern: : vzz innuences of a bad world 
have necessarily, as to us, lost very much of their 
power. 

13. Insensibility to mortal destiny. — How comes 
it to be possible that men can see the partakers of 
their own nature and d-i5*.*'r*y v ithering and falling 
from the tree of life, and caiiily look at them in their 
fall in the dust with hardly one pointed reflection 
turned on themselves ! As if the careless spectator 



FRAILTY OF LIFE. 205 

eliould say, ''Well, they must go ! there is no help for 
them ! unfortunate lot ! but it is nothing to me ex- 
cept to pity them for a moment, and be glad that I 
am under no such disastrous decree !" So little is 
there of ominous sympathy felt, while men see neigh- 
bors, acquaintances, friends, relatives, one by one 
fading, falling, and vanishing. 

14. Retrospect of the year. — We have been con- 
suming our years ; we have very nearly expended 
another ; think how nearly it is gone from us ! Yon- 
der as it were behind is the long lapse of it. As if 
we stood by a stream bearing various things upon it 
away. We can look back to its successive times and 
incidents, as what we were present to. But Omnipo- 
tence can not take us back to meet again its com- 
mencement, or any portion or circumstance of it. 
We are present now to one of its latest diminutive 
portions, which Omnipotence can not withhold from 
following the departed. We are occupying it, breath- 
ing in it, thinking in it, for nearly the last time; little 
more of it is remaining than time enough for bidding 
it a solemn and reflective farewell ! A few hours 
more, and the year can never be of the smallest fur- 
ther use to us, except in the way of reflection 

It is like a seed-time gone, and the tract of ground 
sunk under the sea. It is as a treasure-house burnt; 
but of which, nevertheless, we may find some little 
of the- gold melted into a different form in the ashes. 
Let us then, in parting with the year, try to gain from 
it the last and only thing it can give us — some profit 
by means of our thoughts reaching back to what is 
gone. - 

15. Misimprovement of time. — Our year has been 
parallel to that of those persons who have made the 
noblest use of it. We can represent to ourselves the 
course of the most devoted servant of God through 
this past year, in various states, and modes of em- 
ployment. Now we had just the same hours, days, 

18 



206 poster's thoughts. 

and months, as tJiey. Let the comparison be made. 
Why was the day, the week, the month, of less vahie 
in our hands than in theirs ] Do we stand for ever 
dissociated from them upon this year ? How desira- 
ble that we may be associated with them during the 
next, if God prolong our life ! . . . . And, at the very 
times when we were heedlessly letting it pass by, 
throwing it away — there were, here and there, men 
passionately imploring a day — an hour — a few mo- 
ments — more. And at those same seasons some 
men, here and there, were most diligently and earn- 
estly redeeming and improving the very moments we 
lost ! the identical moments — for we had the same, 
and of the same length and value. Some of them 
are, in heaven itself, now enjoying the consequences. 
Where do we promise ourselves the consequences 
of those portions of time lost] 

16. Precursors of approaching death unwelcome. — 
How unwelcome are these shortening days ! The 
precursory intimations of winter even before the sum- 
mer itself is gone, and how almost frightfully rapid 
the vicissitudes of the seasons, telling us of time, the 
consumption of life, the approximation to its end. 
That end ; that end ! And there is an hour decreed 
for the final one. It loill be here — it will be past. 
And then — that other life ! that other world ! Let us 
pray more earnestly than ever, that the first hour 
after the last may open upon us in celestial light. 

17. Death the termination of a journey. — The idea 
of his moving rapidly on, in vigorous life to a certain 
spot, to one precise point, and on coming exactly 
thither, being, as in a moment, in another world, 
renders the mystery of death still more intense. And 
there being nothing to excite the slightest anticipa- 
tion, when he set out on the journey, when he came 
within a mile — within a few steps of the fatal point ! 
How true the saying, that "in the midst of life we 
are in death !" 



FUTURE LIFE. 207 

18. Mystery of the change of death. — In looking 
on the deserted countenance, through which mind 
and thought had so recently, but, as it were, a few 
minutes before, emanated, I felt what profound mys- 
tery there was in the change. What is it that is gone 1 
What is it now? 

19. What the activity of the future state. — Very 
many human .beings have within our knowledge left 
this scene of action. We can recall them to thought 
individually ; we observed their actions. How have 
they been employed since 1 The triflers how 1 The 
active enemies of God how ] The servants of Christ 
how 1 We can not very formally represent to our- 
selves how ; but it is interesting to look into that 
solemn obscurity — to think of it. Think of all that 
have done all the works under the sun "ever since 
that luminary began to shine on this world — now in 
action in some other regions ! Think of all those 
whose actions we have beheld and judged — those 
recently departed — our own personal friends ! Have 
they not a scene of amazing novelty and change j 
while yet there is a relation, a connecting quality 
between their actions before and now The dif- 
ference and comparison would dilate our faculties to 
the intensest wonder. 

20. Revelations of eternity. — There is eternity; 
you have lived perhaps thirty years ; you are by no 
means entitled to expect so much more life ; you at 
the utmost will very soon, very soon die ! What fol- 
lows ? Eternity ! a boundless region ; inextinguish- 
able life; myriads of mighty and strange spirits; 
vision of God ; glories, horrors. 

21. The future partially revealed or wisely veiled. 
— We here " know but in part." So " in part," that 
just the part, the portion which we wish to attain, is 
divided off from our reach. It seems as if a dissever- 
ing principle, or a dark veil, fell down exactly at the 
point where we think we are near upon the knowl- 



208 poster's thoughts. 

edge we are pursuing. We reach the essential ques- 
tion of the inquiry; let that be surpassed and we 
should arrive at the truth — exult in the knowledge. 
But just there we are stopped by something insuper- 
able ; and there we stand, like prisoners looking at 

their impregnable wall In this life men are 

placed in this world's relations, a system of relations 
corresponding to our inhabiting a gross, frail, mortal 
body, with all its wants and circumstances — and that 
we have to perform all the various business of this 
world. That there are innumerable thoughts, cares, 
employments, belonging inseparably to this our state ; 
and that therefore there must not be such a mani- 
festation of the future state as would confound, stop, 
and break up, this system. 

22, Future world veiled. — " How gloomy that range 
of lamps looks (at some distance along the border of 
a common), how dark it is all around them." Yes, 
like the lights that are disclosed to us from the other 
world, which simply tell us, that there, in the solemn 
distance, where they burn encircled with darkness, 
that world is, but shed no light on the region. 

23. Mystery of man* s relations to the future — his 
uncertain progression. — Many of these questions are 
such as, being pursued, soon lead the thinking spirit 
to the brink, as it were, of a vast unfathomable gulf. 
It is aiTested, and becomes powerless at the limit ; 
there it stands, looking on a dark immensity ; the 
little light of intellect and knowledge which it brings 
or kindles, can dart no ray into the mysterious ob- 
scurity. Sometimes there seems to be seen, at some 
unmeasured distance, a glimmering spot of light, but 
it makes nothing around it visible, and itself vanishes. 

But often it is one unbounded, unvaried, starless, 
midnight darkness — without one luminous point 
through infinite space. To this obscurity we are 
brought in pursuing any one of very many questions 
of mere speculation and curiosity. But there is one 



FUTURE LIFE. 209 

question which combines with the interest of specu- 
lation and curiosity an interest incomparably greater, 
neai-er, more affecting, more solemn. It is the sim- 
ple question — " What shall we be V How soon 
it is spoken ! but who shall reply 1 Think, how pro- 
foundly this question, this mystery, concerns us — 
and in comparison with this, what are to us all ques- 
tions of all sciences 1 What to us all researches into 
the constitution and laws of material nature ? What 
— all investigations into the history of past ages 1 
What to us — the future career of events in the prog- 
ress of states and empires 1 What to us — what shall 
become of this globe itself, or all the mundane sys- 
tem ? What WE shall be, we ourselves, is the matter 

of surpassing and infinite interest I that am 

now, that am here, that am thus ; what shall I be, 
and where, and how, when this vast system of na- 
ture shall have passed away? What — after ages 
more than there are leaves or blades of grass on the 
whole surface of the globe or atoms in its enormous 
mass ohall have expired ? What — after another such 
stupendous lapse of duration shall be gone ] Those 
terms of amazing remoteness will ariive ; yes those* 
periods the very thought of which engulfs our facul- 
ties will be come SiTid will he past / .... To ascertain, 
for instance, the yet unknown course of a great river, 
has excited the invincible ardor of some of the most 
enterprising of mortals — who, in long succession, 
have dared all perils, and sacrificed, their lives. To 
force a passage among unknown seas and coasts, in 
the most frowning and dreadful regions and climates ; 
to penetrate to the discovery of the hidden laws, and 
powers, and relations of nature ; to ascertain the 
laws, the courses, the magnitudes, the distances, of 
the heavenly bodies ; something — is the truth, in all 
these subjects of ambitious and intent inquisition. 
But what if all this could be known ? If we could 
have the entire structure of this globe disclosed, to 
18* 



210 poster's thoughts. 

its very centre, to our sight or intelligence ; if through 
some miraculous intervention of Divine power, we 
could have a vision of the whole economy of one of 
the remotest stars ; or if our intelligence could pass 
down, under a prophetic illumination, to the ends of 
time in this world, beholding, in continued series, the 
grand course of the world's affairs and events ; what 
would any or all of these things be, in comparison 
with the mighty prospect of our own eternal exist- 
ence ? with what is to be revealed upon us, and to be 
realized in our very being, and experience, through 
everlasting duration ? 

24, Irrepressihle longing to know the future. — But 
oh ! my dear friend, whither is it that you are going] 
Where is it that you will be a few short weeks or 
days hence. I have affecting cause to think and to 
wonder concerning that unseen world ; to desire, 
were it permitted to mortals, one glimpse of that 
mysterious economy, to ask innumerable questions to 
which there is no answer — what is the manner of 
existence — of employment — of society — of remem- 
brance^-of anticipation of all the surrounding reve- 
lations to our departed friends ? How striking to 
think, that slie, so long and so recently with me here, 
so beloved, but now so totally withdrawn and absent, 
that she experimentally knows all that I am in vain 
inquiring ! 

2^. Prohlems of this life solved in the next. — One 
object of life should be to accumulate a great numbei 
of grand questions to be asked and resolved in eter 
nity. We now ask the sage, the genius, the philoso- 
pher, the divine — none can tell; but we will open our 
series to other respondents — we will ask angels — God. 

26. Pagan vieivs of a future state dim and inef 
fcacious. — The shadowy notion of a future state 
which hovered about the minds of the pagans, a vague 
apparition which alternately came and vanished, was 
at once too fantastic and too little of a serious belief 



FUTURE LIFE. 211 

t3 be of any avail to preserve the rectitude, or to 
maintain the authonty, of the distinction betw^een 
right and wrong. It was not defined enough, or no- 
ble enough, or convincing enough, or of judicial ap- 
plication enough, either to assist the efficacy of such 
moral principles as might be supposed to be innate 
in a rational creature, and competent for prescribing 
to it some virtues useful and necessary to it even if 
its present brief existence were all ; or to enjoin ef- 
fectually those higher virtues to which there can be 
no adequate inducement but in the expectation of a 
future life. 

Imagine, if you can, the withdrawment of this doc- 
trine from the faith of those who have a solemn per- 
suasion of it as a part of revealed truth. Suppose 
the grand idea either wholly obliterated, or faded 
into a dubious trace of what it had been, or trans- 
muted into a poetic dream of classic or barbarian 
mythology — and how many moral principles would 
be found to have vanished with it, would necessarily 
break up the government over his conscience. 

27. The offences of some elegant writers, in con- 
founding the Christianas with the pagan's triumph 
over death. — What is the Christian belief of that poet 
worth, who would not, on reflection, feel self-re- 
proach for the affecting scene, which has, for a while, 
made each of his readers rather wish to die with 
Socrates, or with Cato, than with St. John ? What 
w^ould have been thought of the pupil of an apostle, 
who, after hearing his master describe the spirit of a 
Chi'istian's departure from the world, in language 
which he believed to be of conclusive authority, and 
which asserted or clearly implied that this alone was 
greatness in death, should have taken the first occa- 
sion to expatiate with enthusiasm on the closing scene 
of a philosopher, or on the exit of a stern hero, that, 
acknowledging in the visible world no object for 
either confidence or fear, ds-oarted with the aspect 



212 Foster's thoughts. 

of a being who was going to summon his gods to 
judgment for the misfortunes of his hfe ] And how 
will these careless men of genius give their account 
to the Judge of the world, for having virtually taught 
many aspiring minds tliat, notwithstanding his first 
coming was to conquer for man the king of terrors, 
there needs no recollection of him, in order to look 
toward death with noble defiance or sublime desire ? 

28. Vague notions of heaven. — The martial va- 
grants of Scandinavia glowed with the vivid anticipa- 
tions of Valhalla; the savages of the western conti- 
nent had their animating visions of the " land of 
souls;" the modern Christian barbarians of England, 
who also expect to live after death, do not know what 
they mean by their phrase of " going to heaven." 

29. Grand deliverance of death. — How obvious is 
it, too, that there must be a change, like that accom- 
plished through death, in order to the enlargement 
of our faculties, to the extension of the sphere of their 
never-remitting, never-tiring exertion, to their enjoy- 
ing a vivid perception of truth, in a continually ex- 
panding manifestation of it, and to their entering, 
sensibly and intimately, into happier and more ex- 
alted society than any that can exist on earth. Some- 
times, while you are thinking of that world unsee# 
which is now an object of your faith, but may soon 
be disclosed to you in its wondrous reality, it will 
occur to you, how many most interesting inquiries 
to which there is here no reply, will, to you, be 
changed into knowledge ! how many things will be 
displayed to your clear and delighted apprehension, 
which the most powerful intellect, while yet confined 
in the body, conjectures and inquiries after in vain. 
What a mighty scene of knowledge and felicity there 
is, which it is necessary to die in order to enter into ! 
Yes, to be fully, sublimely, unchangeably happy, it 
is necessary to die. For the soul to be redeemed to 
liberty and purity — to rise from darkness to the great 



Future life. 213 

vision of trath — to be resumed into the presence of 
its Divine Oriofinal— to enter into the communion of 
the Mediator of the new testament and of the spirits 
of the just, it is necessary to die ! 

30. Death the sovereign remedy for all injlrmities . 
— It often occurs to meditative thought, what an in- 
stant cure it will be for all the disorders at once, when 
the frame itself is laid down, and the immortal inhab- 
tant, abandoning it, will care no more about it; will 
seem to say, " Take all thy diseases with thee now 
into the dust; they and thou concern me no* more." 

31.* State of the righteous in heaven to he desired. 
— The consequence would be that all things affecting 
the soul, in the way of attracting it, would affect it 
right. Nothing would attract it which ought not; 
it would be in repulsion to all evil ; and those things 
which did attract, and justly might, would do so in 
the right degrees and proportion so far, and no fur- 
ther; with so much force, and no more; and with an 
unlimited force that alone which is the supreme good. 
What a glorious condition this ! And this must be 
the state of good men in a future world, else there 
would be temptation, trial, hazard, and the possibility 
of falling How marvellous and how lamenta- 
ble, that the soul can consent to stay in the dust, when 
invited above the stars ; having in its own experience 
the demonstration that this is not its world ; knowing 
that even if it were, the possession will soon cease; 
and having a glorious. revelation and a continual loud 
call from above ! . . . . Happy ! considering that to 
those higher things we are in a constant, permanent 
relation ; whereas our relation to the terrestrial is 
varying and transient. Reflect, how many things 
on the earth we have been in relation to, but are no 
longer, and shall be no more. Happy ! because a 
right state of the affections toward the superior ob- 
jects, is the sole security for our having the greatest 
benefit of those on earth. For that which is the best 



214 Foster's thoughts. 

in the inferior, is exactly that which may contribute 
to the higher; and that will never be found but by 
him who is intent on the higher. Happy ! because 
every step of the progress which we must make in 
leaving the one, is an advance toward a blessed and 
eternal conjunction with the other. Then, that cir- 
cumstance of transcendent happiness, that in the su- 
perior state of good men there will be no contrary 
attractions, no divei^se and opposed relations to put 
their choice and their souls in difficulty or peril ! 

32. Future greatness of man. — Futurity is tlie 
greatness of /nan, and that hereafter is the grand scene 
for the attainment of the fullness of his existence. 
When depressed and mortified by a conscious little- 
ness of beinsT, vet feelinfj emotions and intimations 
which seem to signify that he should not be little, he 
may look to futurity and exclaim, "I shall be great 
vonder!" "\Mien feelinof how little belonsfs to him, 
how diminutive and poor his spiiere of possession 
here, he may say, ** The immense futurity is mine !" 
Looking at man, we seem to see a vast collection of 
little beginnings — attempts — failures — like a plan- 
tation on a bleak and blasted heath. And the 
progress in whatever is valuable and noble, whether 
in individuals or communities, is so miserably diffi- 
cult and slow. So that " the perfectibility of man," 
in the sense in which that phrase has been employed, 
stands justly ridiculed as one of the follies of philo- 
sophic romance. Then how delightful it is to see 
revelation itself, pronouncing as possible, and pre- 
dicting as to come, something " perfect" in the con- 
dition of man ! 

33. 'Lofty aspirations for the future life. — I have 
been readincf some of Milton's amazing desciiptions 
of spirits, of their manner of life, their powers, their 
boundless liberty, and the scenes which they inhabit 
or traverse ; and my wonted enthusiasm kindled high. 
I almost wished for death ; and wondered with great 



FUTURE LIFE. 215 

admiration what that life and what tnose strange re- 
gions really are, into which death will turn the spirit 
free ! I can not wonder, and I can easily pardon, 
that this intense and sublime curiosity has sometimes 
demolished the coi-poreal prison, by flinging it from 
a precipice, or into the sea. Milton's description of 
Uiiel and the Sun revived the idea which I have be- 
fore indulged as an imagination of sublime luxury, 
of committing myself to the liquid element (suppo- 
sing some part of the sun a liquid fire), of lisirjg on 
its swells, flashing amid its surges, darting upward a 
thousand leagues on the spiry point of a flame, and 
then falling again fearless into the fervent ocean. 
Oh, what is it to be dead ; what is it to shoot into the 
expansion, and kindle into the ardors of eternity; 
what is it to associate with resplendent angels ! 

34. Sorrows of this compensated by the joys of the 
future Ife. — Remember, my friend, what a sublime 
compensation He is able to make you for all these 
troubles, and often read and muse on those promises 
in which he has engaged to make you eternally hap- 
pier for the present pains. Think how completely 
all the griefs of this mortal life will be compensated 
by one age, for instance, of the felicities beyond the 
grave, and then think that one age multiplied ten 
thousand times, is not so much to eteraity as one 
grain of sand is to the whole material universe. 
Think what a state it will be to be growing happier 
and happier still as ages pass away, and yet leave 
something still happier to come ! 

35. Contemplation of the departed righteous. — You 
can thus regard her as having passed beyond the very 
last of the pains and son-ows appointed to her exist- 
ence by her Creator, as looking back on them all^ 
and having entered on an eternity of unmingled joy ; 
as having completed a short education for a higher 
sphere and a nobler society ; as having attained since 
she was your companion, and by the act of ceasing 



216 Foster's rnoUGHTS. 

to he so, tliat in comparison with which the whole 
sublunary world is a trifle ; as having left your abode 
because her presence was required among the blessed 
and exalted servants of the supreme Lord inheaven. 

36. Death the exchange of the earthly for the heav- 
enly treasure. — " Paid the debt of nature." No; it 
is not paying a debt — it is rather like bringing a note 
to a bank to obtain solid gold in exchange for it. In 
this case you bring this cumbrous body, which is noth- 
ing worth, and which you could not wish to retain 
long ; you lay it down, and receive for it from the 
eternal treasures — liberty, victory, knowledge, rap- 
tuie. 

37. Premonitions of mortal dissolution welcomed. — 
Indeed, I would regard as something better than en- 
emies, the visitations that give a strong warning of 
the final and not remote beating down and demoli- 
tion of the whole frail tabernacle. A salutary im- 
pression made on the soul, even through a wound of 
the body, is a good greatly more than compensating 
the evil. In the last great account no doubt a vast 
number of happy spirits will have to ascribe that hap- 
piness to the evils inflicted on their bodies, as the im- 
mediate instrumental cause. 

38. Joyous anticipation of the heavenly state. — Let 
us gratefully hail the gleams that come to us from a 
better world, through the gloom of declining age, 
which is beginning to darken before us, and give all 
diligence to the preparation for passing the shades 
of death, confident in the all-sufl5ciency of Him who 
died for us, to emerge into the bright economy and 
the happy society beyond. 

39. The aged believer approaching a future life. — 
An aged Christian is soothed by the assurance that 
his Almighty Friend will not despise the enfeebled 
exertions, nor desert the oppressed and fainting weak- 
ness, of the last stage of his servant's life. When 
advancing into the shade of death itself, he is anima- 



PERSUASIVES TO A RELIGIOUS LIFE. 217 

ted by the faith that the gi'eat sacrifice has taken the 
malignity of death away ; and that the Divine pres- 
ence will attend the dark steps of this last and lonely 
^nterpnse, and show the dying traveller and combat- 
ant with evil that even this melancholy gloom is the 
very confine of paradise, the immediate access to the 
region of eternal life. 

40. Regrets of converted old age. — When the sun 
thus breaks out toward the close of his gloomy day, 
and when, in the energy of his new life, he puts forth 
the best efforts of his untaught spirit for a little divine 
knowledge, to be a lamp to him in entering ere long 
the shades "^of death, with what bitter regret he looks 
back to the period when a number of human beings, 
some perhaps still with him, some now scattered from 
him, and here and there pursuing their separate 
courses in careless ignorance, were growing up un- 
der his roof, within his charge, but in utter estrange- 
ment from all discipline adapted *to insure a happier 
sequel ! His distressing reflection is often represent- 
ing to him what they might now have been if they had 
grown up under such discipline. And gladly would 
he lay down his life to redeem for them but some 
inferior share of what the season for imparting to 
them is gone for ever. 

41. Death of the righteous and the wicked contrast- 
ed. — It is well ; but if, sweeping aside the pomp and 
deception of life, we could draw from the last hours 
and death-beds of our ancestors all the illuminations, 
convictions, and uncontrollable emotions, with which 
they have quitted it, what a far more affecting history 
of man should we possess ! Behold all the gloomy 
apartments opening, in which the wicked have died ; 
contemplate first the tiiumph of iniquity, and here 
behold their close ; witness the terrific faith, the too 
late repentance, the prayers suffocated by despair 
and the mortal agonies ! These once they would not 
believe ; they refused to consider them ; they could 

19 



218 Foster's thoughts. 

not allow that the career of crime and pleasure was 
to end. But now truth, like a blazing star, darts 
over the mind, and but shows the way to that " dark- 
ness visible" which no light can cheer. " Dying 
wretch !" we say in imagination to each of these, " is 
religion true ?" Do you believe in a God, and anoth- 
er life, and a retribution V — " Oh yes !" he answers, 
and expires. But " the righteous hath hope in his 
death." Contemplate through the unnumbered saints 
that have died, the soul, the true and inextinguisha- 
ble life of man, charmed away from this globe by ce- 
lestial music, and already respiring the gales of eter- 
nity ! If we could assemble in one view all the ado- 
ring addresses to the Deity, all the declarations of 
faith in Jesus, all the gratulations of conscience, all 
the admonitions and benedictions to weeping friends, 
and all the gleams of opening glory, our souls would 
burn with the sentiment which made the wicked Ba- 
laam devout, and exclaim, " Let me die the death of 
the righteous, and let my last end be like his." These 
revelations of death would be the most emphatic com- 
mentary on the revelation of God. 

' 42. WitJwut God in the ivorld. — " Without God in 
the world." Think what a description, and appHca- 
ble to individuals without number ! If it had been 
*' without friends — without food — without shelter" — 
that would have had a gloomy sound ; but, *^ without 
God .'" without him ! — that is, in no happy relation 
to him who is the very origin, support, and life, of 
all things ; without him who can make good flow to 
his creatures from an infinity of sources ; without him 
whose favor possessed is the best, the sublimest of 
all delights, all triumphs, all glories ; without him 
who can confer an eternal felicity ; without him, too, 
in a world where the human creature knows there is 
a mighty and continual conspiracy against his welfare. 
What do thosOj who are under so sad a destitution, 
value and seek instead 1 But what will anything or 



PERSUASIVES TO A RELIGIOUS LIFE. 219 

all things be worth in his absence ? . . . . "We need 
rrot dwell on that condition of humanity in which 
there is no notion of Deity at all — the condition of 
some outcast savage tribes. The spirit with nothing 
to go out to, beyond its clay walls, but the immedi- 
ately surrounding elements, and other creatures of 
the same order. . . . That relation constitutes the law 
of good and evil, and fixes an awful sanction on the 
difference. In an endless series of things — that there 
is such a Being, und that I belong to him, is a reason 
for one thing, and against another. The thought of 
him is to be associated with all these things, and its 
influence to be predominant. " Thus — and thus — 7 
think — and wish — and will — and act — hecause thert 
is a God." Now for me to forget or disregard all 
this, is to remove myself, as far as I can, from God ; 
to cause, as far as I am able, that to me there is no 

God To be insensible to the Divine character 

as lawgiver, rightful authority, and judge, is truly to 
be " without God in the world." For thus every ac- 
tion of the soul and the life assumes that he is absent, 
or not exists. . . . Without him as a friend, approver, 
and patron ; no devout, ennobling converse with him ; 
no conscious reception of delightful impressions, sa- 
cred influences, suggested sentiments ; no pouring 
out of the soul in fervent desires for his illuminations, 
his compassions, his forgiveness, his transforming op- 
erations ; no oaniest penitential, hopeful pleading in 
the name of the Great Intercessor; no solemn, affec- 
tionate dedication of the whole being Consider 

the loneliness of a human soul in this destitution. All 
other beings are necessaiily (shall we express it so X) 
extraneous to the soul ; they may communicate with 
it, but they are still separate and without it ; an in- 
termediate vacancy keeps them for ever asunder, so 
that the soul must be, in a sense, in an insupportable 
and eternal solitude — that is, as to all creatures. 
43. Presumption of delay for Divine influences. — 



220 poster's thoughts. 

When a mariner suffers a long, dead calm on the 
ocean, how oft he looks up at the sails, and says, 
" Oh, if the winds would but blow !" Now there 
may be persons who will aver that the thoughtful 
man can do"no more respecting his motives than the 
mariner respecting the winds. We must think dif- 
ferently. . . . Or shall he wait quietly to see whether 
the good motives will grow stronger of themselves ? 
— as we may look at a stream, and know that when 
the rain comes, it will be swollen to a toiTent ; as we 
may let trees alone, and see how they will enlarge. 
Alas ! have his good motives grown while he has thus 
waited \ 

44. Approving the good, hut pursuing the wrong. — 
Astonishing fact, that all that mankind acknowledge 
the greatest, they care about the least — as first, on 
the summit of all gi'eatness the Deity ! 'Tis acknowl- 
edged he reigns over all, is present always here, pre- 
vails in each atom and each star, observes us as an 
awful Judge, claims infinite regard, is supremely good 
— what then ? why, think nothing at all about him ! 

45. Indifference to offers of salvation. — Here, now, 
the inestimable gifts of religion are carried round to 
four hundred people (the congregation) : if it could 
be made visible, how many take them, and what part 
of them, and how much, and how many let them pass 
by, and why 1 

46. Unprojited hy the gospel. — Hearing an excel- 
lent sermon — most monstrous truth, that this sermon, 
composed of perhaps two hundred just thoughts, will, 
by the evening hour, be forgotten by all the hearers 
except — how many? Yet every just thought of re- 
ligion requires its counterpart in feeling and action, 
or does it not 1 

47. Indecision is decision. — Let us beware of the 
delusive feeling as if indifference, however prolonged, 
had still nothing in it of the nature of a decision; as 
if it were but remaining in a kind of suspension and 



PERSUASIVES TO A RELIGIOUS LIFE. 221 

protracted equipoise. Are we insensible that an addi- 
tional weight IS falling all the while on the other side, 
by mere time itself which is going, particle by parti- 
cle, to the wrong ; by irreligious habit, which is grow- 
iug stronger and stronger ; and by negation, refusal, 
all the while, of what is claimed by the higher inter- 
est ! We decide against that which we refuse to 
adopt": so that prolonged indifference is decision so 
far ; and indifference to the end will but be decision 
completed ! 

48. Without God. — Dreadful want, if, by some 
vast enlargement of thought, you could comprehend 
the whole measure and depth of disaster contained 
in this exclusion (an exclusion under which, to the 
view of a serious mind, the resources and magnifi- 
cence of the creation would sink into a mass of dust 
and ashes, and all the causes of joy and hope into 
disgust and despair), you would feel a distressing 
emotion at each recital of a life in which religion had 
no share ; and you would be tempted to wish that 
some spirit from the other world, possessed of elo- 
quence that might threaten to alarm the slumbers of 
the dead, would throw himself in the way of this one 
mortal, and this one more, to protest, in sentences of 
lightning and thunder, against the infatuation that 
can at once acknowledge there is a God, and be con- 
tent to forego every connexion with him, but that of 
danger. 

49. Meet death alone. — And it is you, you yourself, 
that bear the oppressive weight. Friends sympa- 
thize; but are often reminded how far their sympa- 
thy is from an actual identity with tie feelings of the 
sufferer. She bears alone the languor, and pain, and 
agitation, of the falling tabernacle. I was most for- 
cibly and pensively struck with this thought in seeing 
you last Tuesday, and still more deeply in reflection 
afterward. I can not express how affectingly the 
idea dwelt on my mind, '* How solitary a thing is the 

19* 



222 Foster's thoughts. 

fatal process !" The friends who are habitually near 
her, or who see her at considerable intervals, are 
deeply interested in the suffering of their young friend, 
but they are not as she is — they can not place them- 
selves in perfect community, can not take a real share 
in that which presses on her — can not remove any 
part of it from her. It is her own individual self, 
still, that feels the sinking of natuie, that breathes 
with labor, that is forced to painful eiiuris, by day 
and night, to relieve the vital organs. And it is in. 
her own sole person that she is approaching to the 
last act of life. 

50. Danger of procrastination. — How dangerous 
to defer those momentous reformations which con- 
science is solemnly preaching to the heart ! If they 
are neglected, the difficulty and indisposition are in- 
creasing every month. The mind is receding, degree 
after degree, from the warm and hopeful zone ; till, 
at last, it will enter the arctic circle, and become fixed 
in relentless and eternal ice ! 

51. Persuasion to religious consideration. — Can the 
voice of the kindest human friend, or the voice from 
Heaven itself, express to you a kinder or wiser sen- 
tence, than that you should apply yourself with all 
earnestness to secure the true felicity — the only real 
and substantial felicity on earth, supposing your life 
should be prolonged — the supreme felicity of a bet- 
ter world, if the sovereign Disposer has appointed 
that your life shall be short? Do not allow your 
thoughts to recoil from the subject as too solemn, 
too gloomy a one. If it were the gloomiest in the 
world, if it were nothing hut gloomy, it is yet ahso- 
lutely necessary to be admitted, and dwelt upon in all 
its importance. What would be gainedy my dear 
John, and oh, what may be lost, by avoiding it, turn- 
ing the thoughts from it, and trying not to look at it ! 
Will the not thinking of it make it cease to be ur- 
gently and infinitely important 1 Will the declining 



PEESUASIVES TO A RELIGIOUS LIFE. 223 

to think of it secure the safety of the momentous in- 
terests involved in it? 

52. Presumption of expecting Trior e efficacious means 
of salvation. — But have no such visitations come to 
you ah'eady % What was their eifect ] Are you to 
be so much more sensible to the impressions of the 
next 1 or do you wish them to be tenfold more se- 
vere 1 If you can wish so, the interest for which you 
wish so must be most urgent. But if it he so urgent, 
why neglected now ? Consider, besides, that the next 
severe visitation may be the last of life — may be a 
fatal disaster — may be a mortal illness ! Or would 
you wait for old age ] What ! because it is confes- 
sedly a great moral miracle for a man careless till old 
age, to be awakened then ! Or will a man profane a 
Christian doctrine, and say, the Spirit of God alone 
Can be efficacious, and he must quietly wait for that ? 
This is saying, in effect, that he will make a trial with 
Omnipotence, and resist as long as he can ! How 
can he anticipate any other than a destructive energy 
from that Spirit upon him, while he is trifling with, 
and frustrating truth, conviction, warnings, and emo- 
tions of conscience ! while he is repelling all these 
minor operations of that Spirit, instead of earnestly 
praying for the grea^;er ! 



22i Foster's thoughts. 



CHAPTER X. 

PLACES, NATIONS, MEN, AND BOOEB. 

1. Bahylon. — There is no modern Babylon. It is 
secluded and alone in its desolation ; clear of all in- 
terference with its one character as monumental of 
ancient time and existence. If the contemplative 
spectator could sojourn there alone and with a sense 
of safety, his mind would be taken out of the actual 
world, and carried away to the period of Babylon's 
magnificence, its multitudes, its triumphs, and the Di- 
vine denunciations of its catastrophe. 

2. Egypt. — Egypt has monuments of antiquity 
surpassing all others on the globe. History can not 
tell when the most stupendous of them were con- 
structed ; and it would be no improbable prophecy 
that they are destined to remain to the end of time. 
Those enormous constructions, assuming to rank with 
nature's ancient works on the planet, and raised, as 
if to defy the powers of man and the elements and 
time to demolish them, by a generation that retired 
into the impenetrable darkness of antiquity when 
their work was done, stand on the surface in solemn 
relation to the subterraneous mansions of death. All 
the vestiges bear an aspect intensely and unalterably 
grave. There is inscribed on them a language which 
tells the inquirer that its import is not for him or the 
men of his times. Persons that lived thousands of 
years since remain in substance and furm, death ever- 
lastingly embodied, as if to emblem to us the vast 
chasm, and the non-existence of relation, between 
their race and ours. A shade of mystery rests on 



NATIONS. 225 

the whole economy to which all these objects be- 
longed, 

3. Illustrious names. — Sesdstris, Semiramis, Ninus, 
&c. These mighty names remain now only as small 
points, emerging a little above that ocean under which 
all their actions are buried. We can just descry, by 
the dying glimmer of ancient history, that that ocean 
is of blood ! 

4. French and English. — Met a number of men 
one after another. My urbanity was not up to the 
point of saying " Good morning," till I had passed 
the last of them, who had nothing to attract civility 
more than the others, except his being the last. If 
a Frenchman and an Englishman were shown a dozen 
persons, and under the necessity of choosing one of 
them to talk an hour with, the Frenchman would 
choose the first in the row, and the Englishman the 
last. 

5. Irish. — It will be the utmost want of candor, 
we think, to deny that they are equal to any nation 
on the earth, in point of both physical and intellectual 
capability. A liberal system of government, and a 
high state of mental cultivation, would make them 
the Athenians of the British empire. By what mys- 
tery of iniquity, or infatuation of policy, has it come 
to pass, that they have been doomed to unalterable 
ignorance, poverty, and misery, and reminded one 
age after another of their dependence on a protestant 
power, sometimes by disdainful neglect, and some- 
times by the infliction of plagues. 

6. State of Ireland. — There is that most appalling 
state of Ireland. I have no degree of confidence that 
the ministry have even the will to adopt the bold, 
and radical, and comprehensive measures which alone 
could avail there. How obvious is the necessity for 
some imperious enactment, to compel that base, de- 
testable landed interest, to take the burden of the 
poor, instead of driving them out to famish, beg, or 



226 Foster's thoughts. 

rob, and murder, on the highway; or throwing them 
by tens of thousands on our coast, to devour the means 
of support to our own population. It would be a 
measure which would first astound, but speedily en- 
rage, the whole selfishly base proprietary of Ireland. 
I have no hope that the ministry have the resolution 
for so mighty a stroke : and then the Irish church. 
The plain sense of the thing is, that about two thirds, 
or rather four fifths of it, ought to be cut down at 
once, and that proportion of the property applied to 
national uses. But the very notion of such a thing 

would be enough to consign to one of the wards 

in St. Luke's. And what would say, if Lord 

Grey dared even to whisper such a thing to him? 
And yet, unless some such thing be done, it is as cleai' 
as noon-day, that Ireland will continue a horrid scene 
of distraction and misery ; growing, month by month, 
more ferociously barbarous, and to be kept down by 
nothing but the terror and occasional exploits of an 
immense standing army, at the cost, too, of this our 
own tax-consuming country, 

7. Addison: deficiency of his writings in religious 
sentiment. — Addison's style is not suflBciently close 
and firm for the use of a philosopher, and as to the 
exquisite shades of his colors, they can perhaps never 

be successfully imitated The very ample scope 

of the spectator gave a fair opportunity for a serious 
writer to introduce, excepting pure science, a little 
of every subject connected with the condition and 
happiness of men. How did it happen that the stu- 
pendous circumstance of the redemption by the Mes- 
siah, of which the importance is commensurate with 
the whole interests of man, with the value of his im- 
mortal spirit, with the government of his Creator in 
thia world, and with the happiness of eternity, should 
not have been a few times, in the long course of that 
work, fully and solemnly exhibited ] Why should 
not a few of the most peculiar of the doctrines com- 



MEN AND BOOKS. 227 

prehended in the subject have been clothed with the 
fascinating elegance of Addison, from whose pen 
many persons would have received an occasional 
evangelical lesson with incomparably more candor 
than from any professed divine 1 

8. Baxter: idea of his lift. — But to say nothing 
of the length of time this would take, where can mor- 
tal patience be found to wprk out such an historical 
analysis ] And indeed, after all, what would be the 
benefit of it ? A boundless, endless maze, and wil- 
derness of debatings, projectings, schemings, and 
dreamings, about churches, and their constitution and 
their government ; about arrangements for union, and 
terms of communion ; the numberless polemical no- 
tices which he thought himself called upon to take 
of all the petty and spiteful cavillers of his time ; the 
hasty productions of an over-official zeal to set every- 
body right about every actual or possible thing; the 
attenuated, and infinitely multiplex argumentations, 
in the manner of the schoolmen, about trivial niceties 
in theological doctrine ; and above all, the ever-re- 
newed and fruitless toils to work out a tertium quid, 
from the impossible combination of two opposite sys- 
tems of theology ; what, I repeat, would be the use 
of attempting to find or make a biogi'aphical road 
through this vast chaos ? 

9. Blair : his style. — The sentences appear often 
like a series of little independent propositions, each 
satisfied with its own distinct meaning, and capable of 
being placed in a different part of the train, without 
injury to any mutual connexion, or ultimate purpose, 
of the thoughts. The ideas relate to the subject 
generally, without specifically relating to one another. 
They all, if we may so speak, gravitate to one centre, 

but have no mutual attraction among themselves 

The consequence of this defect is, that the emphasis 
of the sentiment and the crisis or conclusion of the 
argument come nowhere ; since it can not be in any 



.r\ 



J28 poster's thoughts. 



single insulated thought, and there is not mutual de- 
pendence and co-operation enough to produce any 

combined result The volumes might be taken 

more properly than any other modern book that we 
know, as comprising the whole commonplaces of 

imagery He is seldom below a respectable 

mediocrity, but, we are forced to admit, that he very 
rarely rises above it. After reading five or six ser- 
mons, we become assured that we most perfectly 
see the whole compass and reach of his powers, and 
that, if there were twenty volumes, we might read on 
through the whole, without ever coming to a bold 
conception, or a profound investigation, or a burst 
of genuine enthusiasm. There is not in the train of 
thought a succession of eminences and depressions, 
rising toward sublimity, and descending into famil- 
iarity. 

10. Burke, as compared with Johnson. — I asserted 
the strength of Burke's mind equal to that of John- 
son's ; Johnson's strength is more conspicuous be- 
cause it is barer. A very accomplished lady said, 
"Johnson's sense seems to me much clearer, much 
more entirely disclosed." — " Madam, it is the differ- 
ence of two walks in a pleasure-ground, both equally 
good, and broad, and extended; but the one lies be- 
fore you plain and distinct, because it is not beset 
with the flowers and lilacs which fringe and embower 
the other. T am inclined to prefer the latter." .... 
Burke's sentences are pointed at the end — instinct 
with pungent sense to the last syllable. They are 
like a charioteer's whip, which not only has a long 
and effective lash, but cracks, and inflicts a still 
smarter sensation at the end. They are like some 
serpents of which I have heard it vulgarly said, their 
life is the fiercest in the tail. 

11. Liord Burleigh. — He held the important sta- 
tion during very nearly the whole reign of Elizabeth ; 
and we shall not allow it to constitute any impeach- 



MEN AND BOOKS. 229 

ment of either our loyalty or gallantry, that we have 
wished, while reading the account of his life, that he 
had been the monarch instead of our famous queen. 
It is impossible to say what share of the better part 
of her fame was owing to him, but we are inclined 
to think, that if we could make out an estimate of 
that reign, wanting all the good which resulted from 
just so much wisdom and moderation as Cecil pos- 
sessed beyond any other statesman that could have 
been employed, and including all the evil which no 
other minister would have prevented, we should rifle 
that splendid period of more than half its honors. 

12. Chahners: faults of style.— ^o reader can 
be more sensible to its glow and richness of color- 
ing, and its not unfrequent happy combinations of 
words ; but there is no denying that it is guilty of 
a rhetorical march, a sonorous pomp, a " showy same- 
ness ;" a want, therefore, of simplicity and flexibility; 
withal, a perverse and provoking grotesqueness, a 
frequent descent, strikingly incongruous with the 
prevailing elatedness of tone, to the lowest colloquial- 
ism, and altogether an unpardonable license of strange 
phraseology. The number of uncouth, and fantastic, 
and we may fairly say barbarous phrases, that might 
be transcribed, is most unconscionable. Such a style 
needs a strong hand of reform ; and the writer may 
be assured it contains life and soul enough to endure 
the most unrelenting process of correction, the most 
compulsory trials to change its form, without hazard 
of extinguishing its spirit. 

13. Lord Chatham in his speeches did not reason; 
Ije struck, as by intuition, directly on the results of 
reasoning ; as a cannon-shot strikes the mark with- 
out your seeing its course through the air as it moves 
toward its object. 

14. Coleridge: his original modes of thought, but 
obscure style. — In point of theological opinion, he is 
become, indeed has now a number of years been, it 

20 



230 Foster's thoughts. 

is said, highly orthodox. He wages victorious war 
with the Socinians, if they are not, which I believe 
they now generally are, very careful to keep tho 
peace in his company. His mind contains an aston- 
ishinsf mass of all sorts of knowledo^e, while in his 
power and manner of putting it to use, he displays 
more of what we mean by the term genius than any 

mortal I ever saw or ever expected to see The 

eloquent Coleridge sometimes retires into a sublime 
mysticism of thought ; he robes himself in moon- 
light, and moves among images of which we can not 
be assured for a while whether they are substantial 

forms of sense or fantastic visions The cast of 

his diction is so unusual, his trains of thought so 
habitually forsake the ordinary tracts, and therefore 
the whole composition is so liable to appear strange 
and obscure, that it was evident the most elaborate 
care, and a repeated revisal, would be indispensable 
in order to render so original a mode of writing suf- 
ficiently perspicuous to be in any degree popular. 
.... After setting before his readers the theme, the 
one theme apparently, undertaken to be elucidated, 
could not, or would not, proceed in a straight-for- 
ward course of explanation, argument, and appro- 
priate illustration from fancy ; keeping in sight be- 
fore him a certain ultimate object ; and placing marks, 
as it were, of the steps and stages of the progress. 
.... He always carries on his investigation at a 
depth, and sometimes a most profound depth, below 
the uppermost and most accessible stratum ; and is 
philosophically mining among its most recondite prin- 
ciples of the subject, while ordinary intellectual and 
literary workmen, many of them barely informed of 
the very existence of this Spirit of the Deep, are 
pleasing themselves and those they draw around 
them, with forming to pretty shapes or commodious 
uses, the materials of the surface. Tt may be added, 
with some little departure from the consistency cif the 



MEN AND BOOKS. 231 

metaphor, that if he endeavors to make hisvoiceheard 
from this region beneath, it is apt to be listened to as 
a sound of dubious import, like that which fails to 
brino- articulate words from the remote recess of a 
cavern, or the bottom or the deep shaft of a mine. 
However familiar the truths and facts to which his 
mind, is directed, it constantly, and as if involuntarily, 
strikes, if we may so speak, into the invisible and the un- 
known of the subject: he is seeking the most retired 
and abstracted form in which any being can be ac- 
knowledged and realized as having an existence, or 
any truth can be put in a proposition. He turns all 
things into their ghosts, and summons us to walk with 
him in this region of shades — this strange world of 
disembodied truth and entities. 

15. Curran. — We have long considered this dis- 
tinguished counsellor as possessed of a higher genius 
than any oiie in his profession within the British em- 
pire. The most obvious difference between these 
two great orators is, that Curran is more versatile, 
rising often to sublimity, and often descending to 
pleasantry, and even drollery ; whereas Grattan is 
always grave and austere. They both possess that 
order of intellectual powers, of which the limits can 
not be assigned. No conception could be so brilliant 
or original, that we should confidently pronounce 
that neither of these men could have uttered it. We 
regret to imagine how many admirable thoughts, 
which such men must have expressed in the lapse of 
many years, have been unrecorded, and are lost for 
ever. We think of these with the same feelings, 
with which we have often read of the beautiful or 
sublime occasional phenomena of nature, in past 
times, or remote regions, which amazed and delight- 
ed the beholders, but which we were destined never 
to see. 

16. Miss Edgeworth : moral faults of her writings. 
— Whether our species were intended as an exhibi- 



232 Foster's thoughts. 

tion for the amusement of some superior, invisible, 
and malignant intelligences ; or were sent here to ex- 
piate the crimes of some pre-existent state ; or were 
made for the purpose, as some philosophers will have 
it and phrase it, of developing the faculties of the 
earth, that is to say, managing its vegetable produce, 
extracting the wealth of its mines, and the like ; or 
were merely a contrivance for giving to a certain 
number of atoms the privilege of being, for a few 
years, the constituent particles of warm upright liv- 
ing figures ; whether they are appointed to any future 
state of sentiment or rational existence ; whether, if 
so, it is to be one fixed state, or a series of trans- 
migrations; a higher or lower state than the present; 
a state of retribution, or bearing no relation to moral 
qualities ; whether there be any Supreme Power, 
that presides over the succession and condition of the 
race, and will see to their ultimate destination — or, 
in short, whether there be any design, contrivance, 
or intelligent destination in the whole affair, or the 
fact be not rather, that the species, with all its present 
circumstances, and whatever is to become of it Tiere- 
after, is the production and sport of chance — all these 
questions are probably undecided in the mind of our 

ingenious moralist Our first censure is, then, 

that, setting up for a moral guide, our author does 
not pointedly state to her followers, that as it is but 
a very short stage she can pretend to conduct them, 
they had need — ifxhey suspect they shall be obliged 
to go further — to be looking out, even in the very 
beginning of this short stage in which she accom- 
panies them, for other guides to undertake for their 
safety in the remoter region. She presents herself 
with the air and tone of a person who would sneer 
or spurn at the apprehensive insinuated inquiry, 
whether any change or addition of guides might 
eventually become necessary. 

But, secondly, our author's moral system — on the 



MEN AND BOOKS. 233 

hypothesis of the truth, or possible truth, of revelation 
— is not only infinitely deficient, as being calculated 
to subserve tbe interests of the human creatures only 
to so very short a distance, while yet it carefully 
keeps out of sight all that may be beyond; it is also 
— still on the same hypothesis — perniciously errone- 
ous as far as it goes. For it teaches virtue on prin- 
ciples on w^hich virtue itself will not be approved by 
the Supreme Governor; and it avowedly encourages 
some dispositions, and directly or by implication tol- 
ej'ates others, which in the judgment of that Govern- 
or are absolutely vicious. Pride, honor, generous 
impulse, calculation of temporal advantage and cus- 
tom of the country, are convened along with we know 
not how many other grave authorities, as the com- 
ponents of Miss Edgeworth's moral government — the 
Amphictyons of her legislative assembly. 

17. Fox — Slavery. — For ourselves, we think we 
never heard any man who dismissed us from the ar- 
gument on a debated topic with such a feeling of 
satisfied and final conviction, or such a competence 
to tell why we were convinced. This last abomina- 
tion, which. had gradually lost, even on the basest 
part of the nation, that hold which it had for a while 
maintained by a delusive notion of policy, and was 
fast sinking under the hatred of all that could pretend 
to humanity or decency, was destined ultimately to 
fall by his hand, at a period so nearly contemporary 
with the end of his career, as to give the remembrance 
of his death somewhat of a similar advantage of as- 
sociation to that, by which the death of the Hebrew 
champion is always recollected in connexion with the 
fall of Dagon's temple. 

18. Andrew Fuller. — It appears to us one of the 
most obvious characteristics of Mr. Fullei-'s mind, that 
he was but little sensible of the 77i?/5^erj/ of any subject, 
or of the difficulties arising in the view of its deep 
and remote relations — or if we may use the fashionable 

20* 



234 poster's thoughts. 

term, bearings. To a certain extent, and that un- 
questionably a respectable one, he apprehended and 
reasoned with admirable clearness and force ; and 
he could not, or would not, surmise that any thing of 
importance in the rationale of the subject extended 
beyond that compass : he made therefore his propo- 
sitions, his deductions, his conclusions, quite in the 
tone of a complacent self-assurance of being perfectly 
master of the subject : while in fact the subject 
might involve wider and remoter considerations, not 
indeed easily reducible to the plain tangible predica- 
ments of his rough, confined logic, but essential to a 
comprehensive speculation, and very possibly, of a 
nature to throw great dubiousness on the judgment 
which he had so decidedly formed, and positively 
pronounced, on a too contracted view of the subject. 
.... In closing this note, we do not think it requisite 
to use many words in avowal of our high estimate 
of the intellect and the general energy of mind of the 
distinguished and lamented divine : who, indeed, has 
any other estimate 1 

19. Grattan. — These passages tend to confirm the 
general idea entertained of Mr. Grattan's eloquence, 
as distinguished by fire, sublimity, and an immense 
reach of thought. . . . His eloquence must, in its ear- 
liest stage of public display, have evinced itself as the 
flame and impetus of mighty genius. The man would 
infallibly be recognised as of the race of the intellec- 
tual Incas, the children of the sun. 

20. Robert Hall. — I was two or three times in 
HalFs company, and heard him preach once ; I am 
any one's rival in admiring him. In some remark- 
able manner, everything about him, all he does or 
says, is instinct with power. Jupiter seems to em- 
anate in his attitude, gesture, look, and tone of voice. 
Even a common sentence, when he utters one, seems 
to tell how much more he can do. His intellect is 
peculiarly potential, and his imagination robes, with- 



MEN AND BOOKS. 235 

out obscuring, the colossal form of his mind. His 
mind seems of an order fit with respect to its intel- 
lectual powers to go directly among a superior rank 
of intelligences in some other world, with very little 

requisite addition of force " That memory," he 

said, *' will never vanish from the minds of those who 
have heard his preaching, and frequently his conver- 
sation, during the five years that he has been resident 
here. As a preacher his like or equal will come no 
more." — " The chasm he has left can never be filled. 
The thing to be deplored is, that he did not fill a 
space which he was beyond all men qualified to oc- 
cupy in our religious literature. It is with deep re- 
gret one thinks what an inestimable possession for 
olir more cultivated, and our rising intelligent young 
people, would have been some six or ten volumes of 
his sermons. 

21. Harris: his style. — If I might venture any 
hint on a lower key, it would perhaps be — a tenden- 
cy to difFuseness, or call it amplification, exuberance. 
The writer luxuriates in his opulence, sometimes di- 
luting a little the effect which a little more brevity 
and compression might have sooner and more sim- 
ply produced. Not 'that if I were asked to note 
any parts or passages better omitted, 1 should know 
where to point ; it is all to the purpose ; only I may 
fancy that a somewhat less multifarious assemblage 
of ideas would converge more pointedly to that 
purpose. 

22. Howard: philanthropy his master passion. — 
The energy of his determination was so great, that if, 
instead of being habitual, it had been shown only for 
a short time on particular occasions, it would have 
appeared a vehement impetuosity ; but by being un- 
intermitted, it had an equabihty of manner which 
scarcely appeared to exceed the tone of a calm con- 
stancy, it was so totally the reverse of anything like 
turbulence or agitation. It was the calmness of an 



236 poster's thoughts. 

intensity kept uniform by the nature of the human 
mind forbidding it to be more, and by the character 
of the individual forbidding it to be less. The habit- 
ual passion of his mind was a measure of feeling al- 
most equal to the temporary extremes and paroxysms 
of common minds : as a great river, in its customary 
state, is equal to a small or moderate one when 
swollen to a torrent. 

The moment of finishing his plans in deliberation, 
and commencing them in action, was the same. I 
wonder what must have been the amount of that 
bribe, in emolument, or pleasure, that would have 
detained him a week inactive after their final adjust- 
ment. The law which carries water down a decliv- 
ity, was not more unconquerable and invariable than 
the determination of his feelings toward the main ob- 
ject. The importance of this object — held his facul- 
ties in a state of excitement which was too rigid to be 

affected by lighter interests His attention was 

so strongly and tenaciously fixed on his object, that 
even at the greatest distance, as the Egyptian pyra- 
mids to travellers, it appeared to him with a lumin- 
ous distinctness as if it had been nigh, and beguiled 
the toilsome length of labor and enterprise by which 
he was to reach it. It was so conspicuous before 
him, that not a step deviated from the direction, and 
every movement and every day was an approxima- 
tion. 

23. Home Tooke. — His courage, which was of the 
coolest and firmest kind, shrunk from no hazard ; his 
resources of argument and declamation were inex- 
haustible ; his personal applications had every diver- 
sity of address and persuasion. . . . Probably no man 
ever did, on the strena^tb of what he possessed in his 
mere person, and in the destitution of all advantages 
of birth, wealth, station, or connexions, maintain, 
with such perfect and easy uniformity, so challenging 
and peremptory a manner toward great and pretend- 



MEN AND BOOKS. 237 

ing folks of all sorts He had a constitutional 

courage hardly ever surpassed, a perfect command 
of his temper, all the warlike furniture and efficiency 
of prompt and extreme acuteness, satiric wit in all its 
kinds and degrees, from gay banter to the most deadly 
mordacity — and all this sustained by inexhaustible 
knowledge, and indefinitely reinforced, as his life ad- 
vanced, by victorious exertion in many trying situa- 
tions Toward the conclusion of his life, he made 

calm and frequent refei'ences to his death, but not a 
word is here recorded expressive of anticipations be- 
yond it. The unavoidable inference from the whole 
of these melancholy memorials is, that he reckoned 
on the impunity of eternal sleep. ... A thoughtful, 
religious reader will accompany him with a senti- 
ment of deep melancholy, to behold so- keen, and 
strong, and perverted a spirit, triumphant in its 
own delusions, fearlessly passing into the unknown 
world. 

24. Johnson : elevated moral tone of his writings. 
— Johnson is to be ranked among the greatest of 
moral philosophers, is less at variance with the prin- 
ciples which appear to be displayed in the New Tes- 
tament, than almost any other distinguished writer 
of either of these classes. Bnt few of his specula- 
tions, comparatively, tend to beguile the reader and 
admirer into that spirit which, on turning to the in- 
structions of Jesus Christ and his apostles, would feel 
estrangement or disgust; and he has more explicit 
and solemn references to the gi'and purpose of hu- 
man life, to a future judgment, and to eternity, than 
almost any other of our elegant moralists has had the 

piety or the courage to make No writer ever 

more completely exposed and blasted the folly and 
vanity of the greatest number of human pursuits. 
The visage of Medusa, could not have darted a more 
fatal glance against the tribe of gay triflers, the com- 
etitors of ambition, the proud possessors of wealth, 



238 poster's thoughts. 

or the men wlio consume their life in useless specu- 
lations. 

25. Thomas More : his distinguished and blameless 
character. — A statesman and courtier who was per- 
fectly free from all ambition, from the beginning of 
his career to the end ; who was brought into office 
and power by little less than compulsion ; who met 
general flattery and admiration with a calm indiffer- 
ence, and an invariable perception of their vanity ; 
who amid the caresses of a monarch, long-ed to be 
with his children ; who was the most brilliant and vi- 
vacious man in every society he entered into, and yet 
was more fond of retirement even than other states- 
men were anxious for public glare ; who displayed a 
real and cordial hilarity on descending from official 
eminence to privacy and comparative poverty ; who 
made all other concerns secondary to devotion ; and 
who, with the softest temper and mildest manners, 
had an inflexibility of principle which never at any 
moment knew how to hesitate between a sacrifice of 
conscience and of life. The mind rests on this char- 
acter with a fascination which most rarely seizes it 

in passing over the whole surface of history 

After enduring with unalterable patience and cheer- 
fulness the severities of a year's imprisonment in the 
Tower, he was brought to trial, condemned with the 
unhesitating haste which always distinguishes the 
creatures employed by a tyrant to effect his revenge 
by some mockery of law, and with the same haste 
consigned to execution. Imagination can not repre- 
sent a scene more affecting than the interview of 
More with his favorite daughter, nor a character of 
more elevation, or even more novelty, than that most 
singular vivacity with which, in the hour of death, he 
crowned the calm fortitude which he had maintained 
through the whole of the last melancholy year of his 
life. Thus one of the noblest beings in the whole 
world was made o, victim to the malice of a remorse- 



MEN AND BOOKS. 239 

less crowned savage, whom it is the infamy of the 
age and nation to have suffered to reign or to live. 

26. Pope : religious character of his writings. — 
No reader can admire more than I the discriminate 
thought, the finished execution, and the galaxy of 
poetical felicities, by which Pope's writings are dis- 
tinguished. But I can not refuse to perceive that 
almost every allusion in his lighter works to the 
names, the facts, and the topics, that peculiarly be- 
long to the religion of Ciirist, is in a style and spirit 
of profane banter; and that, in most of his graver 
ones, where he meant to be dignified, he took the ut- 
most care to divest his thoughts of all the mean vul- 
garity of Christian associations. *' Off, ye profane !" 
might seem to have been his address to all evangeli- 
cal ideas, when he began his " Essay on Man ;" and 
they were obedient, and fled ; for if you detach the 
detail and illustrations, so as to lay bare the outline 
and general principles of the work, it will stand con- 
fessed an elaborate attempt to redeem the whole the- 
ory of the condition and interests of men, both in life 
and death, from all the explanations imposed on it by 
an unphilosophical revelation from Heaven. And in 
the happy riddance of this despised though celestial 
light, it exhibits a sort of moonlight vision, of thin, 
impalpable abstractions, at which a speculatist may 
gaze, with a dubious wonder whether they are reali- 
ties or phantoms ; but which a practical man will in 
vain try to seize and turn to account, and which an 
evangelical man will disdain to accept in substitution 
for those applicable and affecting forms of truth with 
which his religion has made him conversant. 

27. Shakspere had perceptions of every kind ; he 
could ihink every way. His mind might be com- 
pared to that monster the prophet saw in his vision, 
which had eyes all over. 

28. Jeremy Taylor. — From the little I have yet 
read, I am strongly inclined to think this said Jeremy 



240 Foster's thoughts. 

is the most completely eloquent writer in our lan- 
guage. There is a most manly and graceful ease and 
freedom in his composition, while a strongirjtellect is 
working logically through every paragraph, while all 
manner of beautiful images continually fall in as by 
felicitous accident. 

29. Formidable extent of literature almost discour- 
ages enthusiastic pursuit. Men of ordinary literary 
hardihood look over the dusty and solemn ranks of 
learned works in a great public library as an invin- 
cible te7'ra incognita ; they gaze on the lettered lati- 
tude and altitude as they would on the inaccessible 
shore of some great island bounded on all sides with 
a rocky precipice. 

30. Understanding the true basis of mental excel- 
lence and sound literature. — Every thinker, writer, 
and speaker, ought to be apprized that understanding 
is the basis of all mental excellence, and that none of 
the faculties projecting beyond'th'i^ basis can be either 
firm or graceful. A mind may have great dignity and 
power, whose basis of judgment, to carry on the fig- 
ure, is broader than the other faculties that form the 
superstructure : thus a man whose memory is less 
than his understanding, and his imagination less than 
his memory, and his wit none at all, may be an ex- 
tremely respectable, able man — as a pyramid is suffi- 
ciently graceful and infinitely strong; but not so a 
man whose memory or fancy is the widest faculty, 
and then his judgment more confined. Not but that a 
man may have a powerful understanding while he has 
a still more powerful imagination ; but he would be a 
much superior man to what he is now, if his under- 
standing could be extended to the dimensions of his 
fancy, and his fancy reduced to the dimensions of his 
present understanding — the faculties thus changing 
places. In eloquence, and even in poetry, which 
seems so much the lawful province of imagination, 
should imagination be ever so warm and redundant. 



LITERATURE, 241 

yet unless a sound, discriminating judgment likewise 
appear, it is not true poetry; no more than it would 
be painting if a man took the colors and brush of a 
painter, and stained the paper or canvass with mere 
patches of color. I can thus exhibit colors as well as 
he, but I can not produce his forms, to which his col- 
ors are quite secondary. Images are to sense what 
colors are to design. The productions of intellect 
and fancy combined are to those of good intellect 
alone, what a picture is to a drawing : each must 
have correct form, proportions, light and shade, &c. ; 
with these alone the drawing may be pleasing and 
striking — at least it will do ; the picture having both 
these recommendations, and the richness of colors in 
addition, is much more beautiful and like reality — 
but the drawing is preferable to a square mile of 
mere colors. 

31. Effect of reading a transcendent dramatic work. 
— I never was so fiercely carried off by Pegasus be- 
fore ; the fellow neighed as he ascended. 

32. Commonplace thoughts can not arrest attention. 
— Many things may descend from th^ sky of truth 
without deeply striking and interesting men ; as from 
the sky of clouds, rain, snow, &c., may descend with- 
out'exciting ardent attention : it must be large hail- 
stones, the sound of thunder, torrent-rain, and the 
lightning-flash ; analogous to these must be the ideas 
and propositions which strike men's minds. 

33. Importance of consistency in fictitious writing. 
—One important rule belongs to the composition of 
a fiction, which I suppose the writers of fiction sel- 
dom think of, viz., never to fabricate or introduce a 
character to whom greater talents or wisdom is at- 
tributed than the author himself possesses ; if he does, 
how shall this character be sustained ] By what means 
should my own fictitious personage think or talk bet- 
ter than myself 1 The author may indeed describe 
hia hero, and say that his Edward, or his Henry, or 

21 



242 Foster's thoughts. 

his Francis, is distinguished by genius, acuteness, 
profundity and comprehension of intellect, originality 
and pathos of sentiment, magical fancy, and every- 
thing else ; this is all very soon done. But if this 
Henry, or Edw^ard, or Clement, or whatever else it 
is, is to talk before us, then, unless the author him- 
self has all these high qualities of mind, he can not, 
like a ventriloquist, make them speak in the person 
of his hero. There w^ill thus be a miserable discrep- 
ancy between what his hero was at his introduction 
described to be, and what he proves himself to be 
when he opens his mouth. We may easily imagine, 
then, how qualified the greatest number of novel- 
writers are for devising thought, speech, and action, 
for heroes, sages, philosophers, geniuses, wits, &c. ! 
Yet this is what they all can do ! 

34. Conversational disquisition on novels. — I have 
often maintained that fiction may be much more 
instructive than real history. I think so still ; but 
viewing the vast rout of novels as they are, I do 
think they do incalculable mischief. I wish we could 
collect them all together, and make one vast fire of 
them ; I should exult to see the smoke of them ascend 
like that of Sodom and Gomorrah : the judgment 
would be as just." 

35. Great deficiency of what may he called conclu- 
sive writing and speaking. — How seldom we feel at 
the end of the paragraph or discourse that something 
is settled and done ! It lets our habit of thinking and 
feeling ^2^5^ he as it ivas. It rather carries on a paral- 
lel to the line of the mind, at a peaceful distance, than 
fires down a tangent to smite across it. We are not 
compelled to say with ourselves emphatically, " Yes, 
it is so ! it must be so ; that is decided to all eterni- 
ty !" The subject in question is still left afloat, and 
you find in your mind no new impulse to action, and 
no clearer view of the end at which your action should 
aim. I want the speaker or writer ever and anon, as 



LITERATURE. 243 

he ends a series of paragraphs, to settle some point 
irrevocably with a vigorous knock of persuasive de- 
cision, like an auctioneer, who with a rap of his ham- 
mer says, " There ! that's yours; I've done with it; 
now for the next." 

36. Commonplace preachers. — It is strange to ob- 
serve how some men, whose business is thought and 
truth, acquire no enlargement, accession, or novelty 
of ideas, from the course of many years, and a wide 
scope of experience. It might seem as if they had. 
slept the last twenty years, and now awaked with ex- 
actly the same intellectual stock which they had be- 
fore they began the nap. 

37. A class of writings as void of merit as of liter- 
ary faults. — There is another large class of Christian 
books, which bear the marks of learning, correctness, 
and a disciplined understanding ; and by a general 
propriety leave but little to be censured ; but which 
display no invention, no prominence of thought, nor 
living vigor of expression : all is flat and dry as a 
plain of sand. It is perhaps the thousandth iteration 
of commonplaces, the listless attention to which is 
hardly an action of the mind : you seem to under- 
stand it all, and mechanically assent while you are 
thinking of something else. Though the author has 
a lich, immeasurable field of possible varieties of re- 
flection and illustration around him, he seems doomed 
to tread over again the narrow space of ground long 
since trodden to dust, and in all his movements ap- 
pears clothed in sheets of lead. . . . But unfortunate- 
ly, they forgot that eloquence resides essentially in 
the thought, and that no words can make that eloquent 
which will not be so in the plainest that could fully 
express the sense. 

3S. Remark on heing requested, to translate Bu^ 
chanan's incomparable Latin Ode to May. — It would 
be like the attempt to paint a sun-setting cloud-scene. 

39. Commonplace truth is of no use, as it makes 



244 Foster's thoughts. 

no impression; it is no more instruction than wind is 
music. The truth must take a particular beaiing, as 
the wind must pass through tubes, to be anything 
worth. 

40. The greatest excellence of writing. — Of all the 
kinds of writing and discourse, that appears to me in- 
comparably the best which is distinguished by grand 
masses and prominent bulks ; which stand out in mag- 
nitude from the tame groundwork, and impel the 
mind by a succession of separate, sti'ong impulses, 
rather than a continuity' of equable sentiment. One 
has read and heard very sensible discourses, which 
resembled a plain, handsome brick wall: all looks 
very well, 'tis regularly built, high, &c., but 'tis all 
alike; it is flat; you go on and on, and notice no one 
part more than another ; each individual brick is noth- 
ing, and you pass along, and soon forget utterly the 
wall itself. Give me, on the contrary, a style of wri- 
ting and discourse that shall resemble a wall that has 
the striking irregularity of pilasters, pictures, nicheg, 
and statues. 

41. Inferior religious books. — It is true enough 
that on every other subject, on which a multitude of 
books have been wiitten, there must have been many 
which in a literary sense were bad. But I can not 
help thinking that the number coming under this de- 
scription bear a larger proportion to the excellent 
ones in the religious department than in any other. 
One chief cause of this has been, the mistake by 
which many good men professionally employed in 
religion have deemed their respectable mental com- 
petence to the office of public speaking the proof of 
an equal competence to a work, which is subjected 
to much severer literary and intellectual laws. 

42. T/ie common of literature. — How large a por- 
tion of the material that books are made of, is desti- 
tute of any peculiar distinction ! " It has," as Pope 
said of women, just "no character at all," An ac- 



LITERATURE. 245 

cumulation of sentences and pages of vulgar tru- 
isms and candle-light sense, which any one was com- 
petent to write, and which no one is interested in 
reading, or cares to remember, or could remember 
if he cared. This is the common of literature — of 
sj)ace wide enough, of indifferent production, and 
open to all. The pages of some authors, on the con- 
trary, give one the idea of enclosed gardens and 
orchards, and one says — " Ha ! that is the man's 
own." 

43. The class of hooks tliat sJiouId he read. — A man 
of ability, for the chief of his reading, should select 
such works as he feels beyond his own power to have 
produced. What can other books do for him but 
waste his time and augment his vanity ? 

44. Waste of time in reading inferior hooks. — Why 
should a man, except for some special reason, read 
a very inferior book, at the very time that he might 
be reading- one of the hio^hest order ? 

45. Ancient rtietapliysics. — The only attraction of 
abstract speculations is in their truth ; and therefore 
when the persuasion of their truth is gone, all their 
influence is extinct. That which could please the 
imagination or interest the affections, might in a con- 
siderable degree continue to please and interest them, 
though convicted of fallacy. But that which is too 
subtle to please the imagination, loses all its power 
when it is rejected by the judgment. And this is the 
predicament to which time has reduced the meta- 
physics of the old philosophers. The captivation of 
their systems seems almost as far withdrawn from us 
as the songs of their sirens, or the enchantments of 
Medea. 

46. The moral effect of the Iliad \q-)on the world. — 
After considering the eflect which has been produced 
by the Iliad of Homer, I am compelled to regard it 
with the same sentiment as I should a knife of beau- 
tiful workmanship, which had been the instrument 

21* 



.5% 



240 Foster's thoughts. 

used in murdering an innocent family. Recollect, as 
one instance, its influence on Alexander, and through 
him on the world. 

47. PJiilosopJiy of the demoralizing influence of lit- 
erature, — No one, I suppose, will deny that both the 
characters and the sentiments, which are the favor- 
ites of the poet and the historian, become the favor- 
ites also of the admiring reader ; for this would be to 
deny the excellence of the poetry and eloquence. It 
is the high test and proof of genius that a writer can 
render his subject interesting to his readers, not 
merely in a general way, but in the very same man- 
ner that it interests himself. If the great works of 
antiquity had not this power, they would long since 
have ceased to charm. We could not long tolerate 
what revolted, while it was designed to please, our 
moral feelings. But if their characters and senti- 
ments really do thus fascinate the heart, how far will 
this influence be coincident with the spirit and with 
the design of Christianity ? .... Let this susceptible 
youth, after having mingled and burned in imagina- 
tion among heroes, whose valor and anger flame like 
Vesuvius, who wade in blood, trample on dying foes, 
and hurl defiance against earth and Heaven ;4et him 
be led into the company of Jesus Christ and his dis- 
ciples, as displayed by the evangelists, with whoso 
narrative, I will suppose, he is but slightly acquaint- 
ed before. What must he, what can he do with his 
feelings in this transition 1 He will find himself flung 
as far as "from the centre to the utmost pole ;" and 
one of these two opposite exhibitions of character 

will inevitably excite his aversion He will be 

incessantly called upon to worship revenge, the real 
divinity of the Iliad, in comparison with which the 
Thunderer of Olympus is but a despicable pretender 
to power. He will be taught that the most glorious 
and enviable life is that to which the gi-eatest num- 
b<er of lives are mad© a sacrifice j and that it is noble 



LITERATURE. 247 

in a hero to prefer even a short life attended by this 
feUcity, to a long one which should permit a longer 
life also to others. 

49. Antagonism to Christianity in professedly Chris- 
tian literature. — I fear it is incontrovertible, that far 
the greatest part of vi^hat is termed polite literature, 
by familiarity with which taste is refined, and the 
naoral sentiments are in a great measure formed, is 
hostile to the religion of Christ; partly by intiodu- 
cing insensibly a certain order of opinions unconso- 
nant, or at least not identical, with the principles of 
that religion ; and still rnore by training the feelings 

to a habit alien from its spirit This is just as if 

an eloquent pagan priest had been allowed constantly 
to accompany our Lord in his ministry, and had di- 
vided with him the attention and interest of his disci- 
ples, counteracting, of course, as far as his efforts 
were successful, the doctrine and spirit of the Teacher 
from heaven. 

50 . Responsibility of elegant writers. — One can not 
close such a review of our fine writers without mel- 
ancholy reflections. That cause which will raise all 
its zealous friends to a sublime eminence on the last 
and most solemn day the world has to behold, and 
will make them great for ever, presented its claims 
full in sight of each of these authors in his time. The 
very lowest of those claims could not be less than a 
conscientious solicitude to beware of everything that 
could in any point injure the sacred cause. This 
claim has been slighted by so many as have lent at- 
traction to an order of moral sentiments greatly dis- 
cordant with its principles. And so many are gone 
into eternity under the charge of having employed 
their genius, as the magicians their enchantments 
against Moses, to counteract the Savior of the world. 

51. Amenability of literature to a standard. — Ev- 
ery work ought to have so far a specific object, that 
we can form some notion what materials are properly 



248 poster's thoughts. 

or improperly introduced, and within what compass 
the whole should be contained. Those works that 
disdain to recognise any standard of prescription 
according to which books are appointed to be made, 
may fairly be regarded as outlaws of literature, which 
every prowling reviewer has a right to fail upon 
wherever he finds them. 

52. Naturalness of characters no excuse for their 
depravity. — It is no justification to say that such in- 
stances have been known, and therefore such repre- 
sentations but imitate reality; for if the laws of criti- 
cism do not enjoin, in works of genius, a careful 
adaptation of all examples and sentiments to the 
purest moral purpose, as a far higher duty than the 
study of resemblance to the actual world, the laws of 
piety most certainly do. Let the men who have so 
much literary conscience about this verisimilitude, 
content themselves with the office of mere historians, 
and then they may relate without guilt, if the relation 
be simple and unvarnished, all the facts and speeches 
of depraved greatness within the memory of the 
world. But when they choose the higher office of 
inventing and combining, they are accountable for all 
the consequences. They create a new person, and, 
in sending him into society, they can choose whether 
his example shall tend to improve or to pervert the 
minds that will be compelled to admire him. 

53. Elegant writers often confound Christian and 
pagan doctrines — You would have supposed that 
these writers had heard of one Jesus Christ, as they 
had heard of one Confucius, as a teacher whose in- 
structions are admitted to contain many excellent 
things, and to whose system a liberal mind will occa- 
sionally advert, well pleased to see China, Greece, 
and Judea, as well as England, producing their phi- 
losophers, of various degrees and modes of illumina- 
tion, for the hDnor of their respective countries and 



LITERATURE. 249 

periods, and for the concurrent pix)motion of human 
intellis^ence. 

O 

54 . The good men of elegan t writers less than Chris- 
tians. — One thing extremely obvious to remark is, that 
the good man, the man of virtue, who is of necessity 
constantly presented to view in the volumes of these 
writers, is not a Christian. His character could have 
been formed, though the Christian revelation had nev- 
er been opened on the earth, or though all the copies 
of the New Testament had perished ages since ; and 
it might have appeared admirable, but not peculiar. 

55. Elegant writers restrict their views too much to 
this life. — Their schemes of happiness, though formed 
for beings at once immortal and departing, include 
little which avowedly relates to that world to which 
they are removing, nor reach beyond the period at 
which they will properly but begin to live. They 
endeavor to raise the groves of an earthly paradise, 
to shade from sight that vista which opens to the dis- 
tance of eteraity. 

5Q. Defective views of the future state in popular 
writers. — The pleaders of them seem more concerned 
to convey the dying man in peace and silence out of 
the world, than to conduct him to the celestial felicity. 
Let us but see him embarked on his unknown voyage 
in fair weather, and we are not accountable for what 
he may meet, or where he may be carried, when he 
is gone out of sight. They seldom present a lively 
view of the distant happiness, especially in any of 
those images in which the Christian revelation has 
intimated its nature. In which of these books, and 
by which of the real or fictitious characters whose 
last hours and thoughts they sometimes display, will 
you find, in terms or in spirit, the apostolic sentiments 
adopted — " To depart and be with Christ is far bet- 
ter" — " Willing rather to be absent from the body, 
and present with the Lord?" 

57. Unfaithfulness of elegant authors to the Chris- 



250 Foster's thoughts. 

tian standard. — No one can be so absurd as to rep- 
resent the notions which pervade the works of pohte 
literature as totally, and at all points, opposite to the 
principles of Christianity ; what I am asserting is, 
that in some important points they are substantially 
and essentially different, and that in others they dis- 
own the Christian modification, 

58. Fine writers present fictitious or corrupting in- 
cidents and aspects of society. — If it be said that such 
works stand on the same ground, except as to the re- 
ality or accuracy of the facts, with an eloquent history, 
which simply exhibits the actions and characters, I 
deny the assertion. The actions and characters are 
presented in a manner which prevents their just im- 
pression, and empowers them to make an opposite 
one. A transforming magic of genius displays a num- 
ber of atrocious savages in a hideous slaughter-house 
of men, as demigods in a temple of glory. No doubt 
an eloquent history might be so written as to give the 
same aspect to such men, and such operations; but 
that history would deserve to be committed to the 
flames. A history that should present a perfect dis- 
play of human misery and slaughter, w^ould incite no 
one, that had not attained the last possibility of de. 
pravation, to imitate the principal actors. It would 
give the same feeling as the sight of a field of dead 
and dying men after a battle is over. 

69. Discrepancy between pagan and CJiristian vir- 
tue overlooked by fine writers. — And why do I deem 
the admiration of this noble display of moral excel- 
lence pernicious to these reflective minds, in relation 
to the religion of Christ 1 For the simplest possible 
reason : because the principles of that excellence are 
not identical with the principles of this religion ; as I 
believe every serious and self-observant man, who 
has been attentive to them both, will have verified in 
his own experience. He has felt the animation which 
pervaded his soul, in musing on the virtues, the sen- 



LITERATURE. kOi 

timents, and the great actions, of these dignified men, 
suddenly expiring, when he has attempted to prolong 
or transfer it to the virtues, sentiments, and actions, 
of the apostles of Jesus Christ. He finds this am- 
phibious devotion impossible. 

60. Paga7i distinctions in morals confounded with 
the Christian hy elegant authors. — It might have been 
presumed that all principles which the new dispensa- 
tion rendered obsolete, or declared or implied to be 
wrong, should no more be regarded as belonging to 
the system of principles to be henceforward received 
and taught, than dead bodies in their graves belong 
to the race of living men. To retain or recall them 
would, therefore, be as offensive to the judgment, as 
to take up these bodies and place them in the paths 
of men would be offensive to the senses ; and as ab- 
surd as the practice of the ancient Egyptians, who 
carried their embalmed ancestors to their festivals. 
It might have been supposed that whatever Christi- 
anity had actually substituted, abolished, or supplied, 
would therefore be practically regarded by these be- 
lievers of it as substituted, abolished, or supplied ; 
and that they would, in all their writings, be at least 
as careful of their fidelity in this great article, as a 
man who adopts the Newtonian philosophy would 
be certain to exclude from his scientific discourse all 
ideas that seriously implied the Ptolemaic or Tycho- 
nic system to be true. 

61. Profane divorcement of literature from religion 
hy popular writers. — After a comparatively small num- 
ber of names and books are excepted, what are called 
the British classics, with the addition of very many 
works of great literary merit that have not quite at- 
tained that rank, present an immense vacancy of 
Christianized sentiment. The authors do not ex- 
hibit the signs of having ever deeply studied Christi- 
anity, or of retaining any discriminative and serious 
impression of it. Whatever has strongly occupied a 



252 Foster's thoughts. 

man's attention, affected his feelings, and filled his 
mind with ideas, will even unintentionally show it- 
self in the train and cast of his discourse : these wri- 
ters do not in this manner betray that their faculties 
have been occupied and interested by the special 
views unfolded in the evangelic dispensation. Of 
their being solemnly conversant with these views, you 
discover no notices analogous, for instance, to those 
which appear in the writing or discourse of a man, 
who has lately passed some time amid the wonders 
of Rome or Egypt, and who shows you, by almost 
unconscious allusions and images occurring in his 
language even on other subjects, how profoundly he 
has been interested in contemplating triumphal arch- 
es, temples, pyramids, and tombs. Their minds are 
not naturalized, if I may so speak, to the images and 
scenery of the kingdom of Christ, or to that kind of 
light which the gospel throws on all objects. They 
are somewhat like the inhabitants of those towns 
within the vast salt-mines of Poland, who, beholding 
every object in their region by the light of lamps and 
candles only, have in their conversation no expres- 
sions describing things in such aspects as never ap- 
pear but under the lights of heaven. 

62. True connexion of religion and literature over- 
looked hy popular authors. — Christian principles have 
something in their nature which has a relation with 
something in the nature of almost all serious subjects. 
Their being extended to those subjects, therefore, is 
not an arbitrary and forced application of them ; it is 
merely permitting their cognizance and interfusion in 
whatever is essentially of a common nature with them. 
It must be evident in a moment that the most general 
doctrines of Christianity, such as those of a future 
judgment, and immortality, if believed to be true, 
have a direct relation with everything that can be 
comprehended within the widest range of moral spec- 
ulation and sentiment. It will also be found that the 



LITERATURE. 253 

more particular doctrines, such as those of the moral 
depravity of our nature, an atonement made by the 
saci-ifice of Christ, the interference of a special Di- 
vine influence in renewing the human mind, and ed- 
ucating it for a future state, together with all the 
inferences, conditions, and motives, reffulting from 
them, can not be admitted and religiously regarded, 
without combining themselves, in numberless instan- 
ces, with a man's ideas on moral subjects. I mean, 
that it is in their very nature thus to interfere and 
find out a relation with these ideas, even if there were 
no Divine requirement that they should. That writer 
must, therefore, have retired beyond the limits of an 
immense field of important and most interesting spec- 
ulations, must indeed have retired beyond the limits 
of all the speculation most important to man, who 
can say that nothing in the religion of Christ bears, 
in any manner, on any part of his subject any more 
than if he were a philosopher of Satan Con- 
sider how small a portion of the serious subjects of 
thought can be detached from all connexion with the 
religion of Christ, without narrowing the scope to 
which he meant it to extend, and repelling its inter- 
vention where he intended it to intervene. The book 
which unfolds it has exaggerated its comprehensive- 
ness, and the first distinguished Christian had a delu- 
sive view of it, if it does not actually claim to mingle 
its principles with the whole system of moral ideas, 
60 as to impart to them a specific character : in the 
same manner as the element of fire, interfused through 
the various forrns and combinations of other elements, 
produces throughout them, even when latent, a certain 
important modification, which they would instantly 
lose, and therefore lose their perfect condition by its 
exclusion. 

22 







254 poster's thoughts. 



CHAPTER XL 

PASSION, AFFECTION, SENSIBILITY, AND SENTIMENT. 

1. Conversation on cruelty ^ and the cruel sports 
particularly among children and very young persons. 
Is not the pleasure of feeling and exhibiting power 
over other things, a principal part of the gratification 
of cruelty ] 

2. Poor horse / to draw both your load and your 
driver: so it is ; those that have power to impose 
burdens, have power and will to impose their vile 
selves in addition. En passant, reflections here ; 
how different is this one fact to me and to the horse 
I this moment looked at ; I think — the horse feels ; 
I am turning a sentence, the horse pants in suffering; 
how languid a feeling is that of sympathy ! Nothing 
mortifies me more than that defect of the vitality of 
sympathy, with which I am for ever compelled to tax 
myself. 

3. Figurative use of ludicrous associations depra- 
ving. — It is a great sin against moral taste to mention 
ludicrously, or for ludicrous comparison, circumstan- 
ces in the animal world which are painful or distress- 
ing to the animals that are in them. The simile, 
" Like a toad under a harrow," has been introduced 
in a way to excite a smile at the kind of human dis- 
tress described, and perhaps that human distress rnight 
be truly ludicrous, for many such distresses thei^ are 
among human beings ; but then we should never as- 
sume as a parallel a circumstance of distress in an* 



PASSIONS, SUSCEPTIBILITIES, ETC. 255 

Other subject which is serious and real. The suffer- 
ings of the brute creation are to me much more sa- 
cred from ridicule or gayety than those of men, be- 
cause they never spring from fantastic passions and 
follies. 

4. Cruelty of the English, — I stoutly maintained in 
a company lately, that the English are the most bar- 
barous people in the world. I cited a number of 
prominent facts ; among others, that hull-haiting was 
lately defended and sanctioned in the grand talisman 
of the national humanity and virtue — the parliament. 

5. Mrs. '^ passions are like a little whirlwind 

— round and round; moving, active, but still here; 
do not carry her forward, away, into superior attain- 
ment. 

6. Curious process of kindling the passion,— fear ^ 
in one's own breast, by the voluntary imagination of 
approaching ghosts, of the sound of murders, &c., 
&c. I sometimes do this to escape from apathy. 

7. Interesting disquisition on the value of continu- 
ous passion, habitual emotion, and whether this can 
be created, and how long a person so feeling could 
live. Bonaparte can not live long. 

8. Strong imagination of lying awake in a solitary 
room, and a ghost entering and sitting down in the 
room opposite me. What an intense feeling it would 
be while I reciprocated the fixed silent glare. 

9. Some people's sensibility is a mere bundle of 
aversions, and you hear them display and parade it, 
not in recounting the things they are attached to<, but 
in telling you how many things and persons they 
** can not bear." 

10. Fine sensihilities are like woodbines, delight- 
ful luxuries of beauty to twine round a solid, upright, 
stem of understanding ; but very poor things, if, un- 
sustained by strength, they are left to creep along the 
ground. 

11. Infinite and incalculable caprices of feeling, — 



256 poster's thoughts. 

A quarter of an hour since how romantic, how en- 
chanted with the favorite idea, how anticipative of 
pleasure from an expected meeting ! I have ad- 
vanced within two hundred yards of the place : well, 
while T have been looking at some trees and pool of 
water, the current of sentiment is changed, and I 
feel as if I could wish to slink away into deep and 
eternal solitude. 

12. Importance of having a system of exercising 
the affections, friendship, marriage, philanthropy, the- 
opathy. If not in some of these ways exercised, af- 
fections become stunted, soured, self-directed. — Old 
maids. 

13. Captious feelings incident to a devoted affection. 
— My friendship for is attended with a pain- 
ful watchfulness and susceptibility ; my heart suffers 
a feverish alternation of cold and warmth ; physical- 
ly and literally sometimes a chill sensation pervades 
my bosom, and moves me at once to be iriitated and 

weep Qu. How far a continual state of feeling 

like this would be propitious to happiness and to vir- 
tue 1 Yet how is a son of fancy and passion to con- 
tent himself with that mere good-liking, which is ex- 
empt from all these pains, because it leaves the most 
elysian powers of the heart to sleep unmolested to 
the end of time 1 It seems tolerably evident, that 
such over-vitalized feelings are unfit for this world, 
and yet without them there can be none of that sub- 
limity and ecstasy of the affections, which we deem 
so congenial to the felicities of a 'superior world. 

14. Sad pleasure m grief — What is that sentiment 
approaching to a sad pleasure, which a mind of pro- 
found reflection sometimes feels in a far inward in- 
communicable grief, though the fixed expectation 
of calamity, or even guilt, were its cause ? 

15. Triumph over evils in word rather than deed. 
— How thoughtless often is a moralist's or a preach- 
er's enumeration of what a firm or pious mind may 



PASSIONS, SUSCEPTIBILITIES, ETC. 257 

bear with patience, or even complacency; as disease, 
pain, reduction of fortune, loss of friends, calumny, 
&c., for he can easily add words ; alas ! how op- 
pressive is the steady anticipation only of any one 
of these evils ! 

16. Hostile feeling mitigated to kindness hy seen 
affiiction. — How every hostile feeling becomes miti- 
gated into something like kindness, when its object, 
perhaps lately proud, assuming, unjust, is now seen 
oppressed into dejection by calamity. The most 
cruel wild beast, or morecmel man, if seen languish- 
ing in death, and raising toward us a feeble and sup- 
plicating look, would certainly move our pity. How 
is this 1 perhaps the character is not even supposed 
to be really changed amid the suffering that modifies 
its expression. Do w^e unconsciously take anything 
like a tender feeling, even for self, as a proof of some 
little goodness, or possibility of goodness 1 Is it for 
those beings alone that we feel nothing, who discov- 
er a hard and stupid indifference to self, and every- 

• thing besides ? Perhaps any sentient being, the 
worst existent or possible, might be in a situation to 
move and to justify our sympathy. What then shall 
we think of that theology which represents the men 
whom God has made most like himself, as exulting 
for ever and ever in the most dreadful sufferings of 
the larger part of those who have been their fellow- 
inhabitants of this world ? 

17. Despair in suffering. — I am going to wade the 
stream of misery, and I see an inaccessible bank be- 
fore me on the other side ; where I may find it ac- 
cessible I do not yet know ! 

18. Sorrows cleave to the heart. — How much one 
wishes it possible to leave each painful feeling that 
accompanies one in the rock, or the tree, or the tomb 
that one passes ; but no : tenaciously faithful, it is 
found to accompany still ! I am gone on, past fields, 

22* 



258 poster's thoughts. 

and woods, and towns, and streams, but there is a 
spectre here still following me ! 

19. Elements of inter.est in conversation. — How is 
it possible the conversation of that pair can be inter- 
esting ] Surely the great principle of continued in- 
terest in such a connexion can not be to talk always 
in the style of simple, direct personality, but to in- 
troduce personality into the subject ; to talk of topics 
so as to involve each other^s feeling y without perpet- 
ually talking directly at each other. 

20 . Reactive influence of kind and of vindictive acts. 
— Let a man compare with each other, and also bring 
to the abstract scale, the sentiment which follows the 
performance of a kind action and that which follows 
a vindictive triumph ; still more if the good was done 
in return for evil. How much pleasure then will that 
man insure — yes, what a vast share of it ! — whose de- 
liberate system it is, that his every action and speech 
shall be beneficent ! 

21. Undue tax upon attention of friends. — Remem- 
ber in case of illness, and confinement, to cause as 
little trouble as possible to attendant friends ; make 
a great and philosophic exertion to avoid this. There 
is good old Mr. B. here, a worthy man, and very 
kind to his family, chiefly daughters, all gi'own up, 
and most of them married. He has suffered a veiy 
severe illness, which made it indispensable for some 
person to sit up with him all night. And though he 
is greatly recovered, so as in the opinion of all his 
friends not to need this service now, yet he has no 
wish to dispense with it, nor seems ever to recollect 
how laborious and oppressive it must be ; and will 
not allow other persons, even one of his other daugh- 
ters, to watch with him as substitutes sometimes, to 
relieve the two v/ho have borne the main weight of 
the service, and who, he thinks, can do it better than 
any one else. Strange inconsideration. 



PASSIONS, SUSCEPTIBILITIES, ETC. 259 

22. Accurate judgment of the character s of friends. 
— Superlative value in connexions of friendship of 
love, of mutual discrimination. I can not love a per- 
son who does not recognise my individual character. 
It is most gratifying, even at the expense of every 
fault being clearly perceived, to see that in my friend's 
mind there is a standard, or scale of degrees, and that 
he exactly perceives w^hich degree on this scale I 
reach to. What nonsense is sometimes inculcated on 
married persons and on children in regard to their 
parents, about being blind to their faults, at the very 
time, forsooth, they are to cultivate their reason to 
the utmost accuracy, and to apply it fully in all other 
instances ! as if, too, this duty of blindness depended 
on the vi^ill ! . . . . All strenuous moral speculations, 
all high ideas of perfection, must be pursued at the 
expense of all human characters around us. The 
defects of our friends will strike us, whether we will 
or not, while we study the sublime theory, and strike 
us the more, the more distinctly we understand the 
theory and them. They will often force their aid on 
us in the form of contrast. This can not be helped ; 
the truth and the consequent feelings must take their 
course. 

23. Mutual assistance in the improvement of friends. 
— What a stupendous progress in everything estima- 
ble and interesting would seem possible to be made 
by two tenderly associated human beings of sense 
and principle, in the course, say, of twelve or twenty 
years. Yes, most certainly ; for one has been con- 
scious of undergoing a considerable modification from 
associating even a month with some one or two in- 
teresting pei'sons. Only suppose this process carried 
on, and how great in a few years the effect; and why 
is it absurd to suppose this process still carried on 
through successive time in domestic society % 

24. Taste for the sublime important. — Represent- 
ed strongly to a young lady the importance of a taste 



260 Foster's thoughts. 

for the sublime, as a most powerful ally to all moral, 
all religious, all dignified plans of happiness. 

25. Inappreciatio7i of works of genius. — Some la- 
dies, to whose conversation I had been listening, were 
to take away an epic poem to read. " Why should 
you read an epic poem?" 1 said to myself; "you 
might as well save yourselves the trouble." How 
often I have been struck at observing, that no effect 
at all is produced, by the noblest works of genius, on 
the habits of thought, sentiment, and talk, of the gen- 
erality of readers ; their mental tone becomes no 
deeper, no mellower ; they are not equal to a fiddle, 
which improves by being repeatedly played upon. 
I should not expect one in twenty, of even educated 
readers, so much as to recollect one singularly sub- 
lime, and by far the noblest part, of the poem in ques- 
tion : so little emotion does anything awake, even in 
the moment of reading; if it did, they would not for- 
get it so soon. 

26. Incapahility for conversation. — Spent part of 
an hour in company with a handsome young woman 
and a friendly little cat. The young woman was ig- 
norant and unsocial. I felt as if I could more easily 
make society of the cat. I was, however, mortified 
and surprised at this feeling when I noticed it. It 
does, however, seem to be a law of our nature, at 
least of mine, that unless our intercourse with a hu- 
man being can be of a certain order, we had rather 
play awhile with an inferior animal. Similar to this 
is the expedient one has often had recourse to, of 
talking a large quantity of mixed sense and nonsense 
to a little child, to even an insensible infant perhaps, 
from finding the toil or the impossibility of holding 
any rational intercourse with the parents. Fortunate- 
ly, in this case the parents are often as much pleased 
as if one were talking to them all the while. 

27. Duncing a low amuseinent. — You plead that 
dancing, &c, are things of pleasant sensation. Yes^ 



PASSIONS, SUSCEPTIBILITIES, ETC. 261 

you are right ; it does not reach sentiment. The line 
that divides the regions of sensation and sentiment is 
a very important one: is not dignity all on the other 
side of this line, that is, the region of sentiment. 

28. Inappreciation of any exhibitions of tnind. — 
They can hear a parson showing away in powder and 
ruffles — the quack doctor haranguing on diseases and 
pills — the veteran *' shouldering his crutch, and telling 
how fields are won" — the barber edging his razor 
with his jests — the young lady giving new interest to 
a tender subject by the remarks which her feelings 
prompt — and the old wench telling a story of wed- 
dings and of witches — all with the same undisturbed, 
tranquillity and dulness. Virtue may triumph, or 
wickedness blaspheme ; distress may supplicate and 
weep; injured innocence may remonstrate ; industry 
may reprove, or gratitude may bless; the philosopher 
may reason, and the idiot may rave; what is it all to 
them % The curious and the novel can not seize at- 
tention ; the grand finds no upper story above the 
kitchen-apartments of their minds ; the tender can 
not awaken torpid sensibility ; and the pathetic re- 
bounds a league from their shielded hearts. 

29. Lfimitless range of moral and metaphysical 
truth. — My efforts to enter into possession of the vast 
world of moral and metaphysical truth, are like those 
of a mouse attempting to gnaw through the door of 
a granary. 

30. Incitements of high example. — How should a 
mind, capable of any intellectual or moral ambition, 
feel at the thought of transcendent examples of talent 
and achievement 1 Suggested on awaking at a late 
hour, and instantly recollecting — " Now Bonaparte 
has probably been four hours employed this morn- 
ing in thinking of the arrangements of the greatest 
empire on earth, and I ." 

31 Different orders of talent. — The question that 
leads most directly to the true estimate of a man's 



262 poster's thoughts. 

talents (I asked myself this question after having been 
several times in Mr. Hall's company) is this : How 
much of new would prove to be gained to the region 
of truth, by the assemblage of all that his mind has 
contributed? The highest order of talent is certain- 
ly the power of revelation — the power of imparting 
new propositions of important truth ; inspiration, 
therefore, while it continued in a given mind, might 
be called the paramount talent. The second order 
of talent is, perhaps, the power of development — the 
power of disclosing the reasons and the proofs of 
principles, and the causes of facts. The third order 
of talents, is, perhaps, the power of application — the 
power of adapting truth to effect. 

32. Connexion of imagmation andjudgment. — Long- 
maintained question in conversation, how far power- 
ful imagination does always, or necessarily, imply 
powerful judgment too. Instances, Burns, Bloom- 
field, &c. 

33. The impress of genius not generally apprecia- 
ted. — The dictates of genius urging elevated princi- 
ples are not admitted or understood by the generality. 
So I remember a man refusing a shilling quite new 
from the mint, every line and point of it distinct and 
brilliant, for "it was an odd kind of shilling, not like 
other shillings," it must therefore be a bad or sus- 
picious one. 

34. Communication of ideas to a congenial mind. — 
I know the luxury of disclosing ideas to a mind who 
has ideas, of expatiating on some grand interest with 
a person who feels already all its inspiration. It is 
like planting a favorite flower amid a bed of still more 
beautiful flowers, instead of dooming it to droop or 
die among nettles, a fate very similar to that of aspi- 
ring sentiments when attempted to be imparted to 
trivial or degraded minds. > 

35. Beaut ful ideas transient. — Regret that inter- 
esting ideas and feelings are the comets of the mind; 



PASSIONS, SUSCEPTIBILITIES, ETC. 263 

tliey transit off. Qu. What mode of making them 
fixed stars, and thus the mind a firmament always 
resplendent 1 

36. Reluctance to mental exertion. — My mind seems 
for ever to carry about with it five hundred weight 
of earth, or lead, or some other heavy and useless 
material, which denies it all power of continued ex- 
ertion. How much I could regret, that industry and 
all other virtues are not, by the constitution of na- 
ture, as necessary and inevitable as the descent of 
water down a hill, and of all heavy bodies to the 
earth. 

37. An original preacher. has one power 

beyond all you preachers I have yet heard — a power 
of massy fragments'of originality, like pieces of rock 
tumbling suddenly down, and dashing into a gulf of 
water below. 

38. Qualifications of an orator or poet. — In short, 
no orator or poet can possibly be a better orator or 
poet than he is a thinker. 

39. Nothing new under the sun. — I compare life to 
a little wilderaess, surrounded by a high, dead wall. 
Within this space we muse and walk in quest of the 
new and the happy, forgetting the insuperable limit, 
till, with surprise, we find ourselves stopped by the 
dead wall ; we turn away, and muse and walk again, 
till, on another side, we find ourselves close against 
the dead wall. Whichever way we turn — still the 
same. 

40. A fascinating companion amidst fascinating 
scenes. — Sat a little while with a fascinating woman, in 
a room which looked out on a beautiful rural and venial 
scene, while the rays of the setting sun shone in with 
a mellow softness that can not be described, after 
spreading a very peculiar light over the grass, and 
being partially intercepted by some blooming orchard- 
trees, so as to throw on the walls of this room a most 
magical picture ; every moment moving and changing, 



264 poster's thoughts. 

and finally melting away. I compared this room in 
this state, contrasted with an ordinary room in an or- 
dinary state, to the interior of a common mind, con- 
trasted with the interior of a mind of genius. Con- 
versation on the feelings and value of genius. Shall 
never forget this hour. 

41. No susceptibility to mental excitation. — How 
many of these minds are there to whom scarcely any 
good can be done 1 They have no excitability. You 
are attempting to kindle a fire of stones. You must 
leave them as you find them, in permanent medioc- 
rity. You waste your time if you do not employ it 
on materials which you can actually modify, while 
such can be found. I find that most people are made 
only for the common uses of life. 

42. Intellect without sentiment. — They seem to have 
only the bare intellectual stamina of the human mind, 
without the addition of what is to give it life and sen- 
timent. They give one an impression similar to that 
made by the leafless trees which you remember our 
observing in winter, admirable for the distinct exhi- 
bition of their branches and minute ramifications so 
clearly defined on the sky, but destitute of all the 
green, soft luxury of foliage which is requisite to 
make a perfect tiee. And even the affections exist- 
ing in snch minds seem to have a bleak abode, some- 
what like those bare, deserted nests which you have 
often seen in such trees. 

43. Diversity of talents. — Divine wisdom has allot- 
ted various kinds and divisions of ability to human 
minds, and each ought to be content with his own 
when he has ascertained what, and of what dimen- 
sions it really is. Let not a poet be vexed that he 
is not as much adapted to mathematics as to po- 
etry ; let not an ingenious mechanic regret that he 
has not the powers of eloquence, sentiment, and fan- 
cy. Let each cultivate to its utmost extent his proper 
talent ; but still remembering that one part of the 



PASSIONS, SUSCEPTIBILITIES, ETC. 265 

mind depends very much on the whole, and that 
therefore every power should receive an attentive 
cultivation, and that various acquisitions are neces- 
sary in order to give full effect to the one in which 
we may excel. To reason well, is most essential to 
all kinds of mental superiority. The Bible forcibly 
displays this division of forces, under the illustration 
of the human body, 1 Cor. xii. 

44. Perverted genius. — Beings, whom our imagi- 
nation represents as capable (when they possessed 
great external means in addition to the force of their 
minds) of the grandest utility, capable of vindicating 
each good cause which has languished in a world ad- 
verse to all goodness, and capable of intimidating the 
collective vices of a nation or an age — becoming 
themselves the very centres and volcanoes of those 
vices; and it is melancholy to follow them in serious 
thought, from this region, of which not all the pow- 
ers, and difficulties, and inhabitants together, could 
have subdued their adamantine resolution, to the Su- 
preme Tribunal where that resolution must tremble 
and melt away. 

45. Moral sentiment not necessarily elevated hy in- 
vestigations of science. — P made some most in- 
teresting observations on the moral effect of the study 
of natural philosophy, including astronomy. He de- 
nied, as a general effect, the tendency of even this 
last grand science to expand, sublime, or moralize 
the mind. He had talked with the famous Dr. Her- 
schel. It was of course to suppose, a priori, that 
Herschel's studies would alternately intoxicate him 
with revery, almost to delirium, and carry him irre- 
sistibly away toward the throne of the Divine Maj- 
esty. P questioned him on the subject. Her- 

Bchel told him that these effects took place in his mind 
in but a very small degree ; much less, probably, than 
in the mind of a poet without any science at all. 
Neither a habit of pious feeling, nor any peculiar and 

23 



866 Foster's thoughts. 

transcendent emotions of piety, were at all the ne- 
cessary consequence. 

46. Figure of perverted use of memory. 'a 

memory is nothing but a row of hooks to hang up 
grudges on. 

47. Characteristic of genius. — One of the strongest 
characteristics of genius is, the power of lighting its 
own fire. 

48. Importance of imagination. — Imagination, al- 
though a faculty of quite subordinate rank to intel- 
lect, is of infinite value for enlarging the field for the 
action of the intellect. It is a conducting and facili- 
tating medium for intellect to expand itself through, 
where it may feel itself in a genial, vital element, in- 
stead of a vacuuni. 



OBSERVATION OF NATURE. 267 



CHAPTER XII. 

OBSERVATIONS UPON NATURE, NATURAL OBJECTS AND 
SCENES ANALOGIES, ETC. 

1. Infinity of creation. — It is but little to say, that 
the material creation is probably of such an extent 
that the greatest of created beings not only have never 
yet been able to survey it at all, but never w^ill to all 
eternity. . . . If the stupendous extension of the works 
of God was intended and adapted to promote, in the 
contemplations of the highest intelligences, an indefi- 
nitely glorious though still incompetent conception 
of the Divine infinity, the ascertaining of the limit, the 
distinct perception of the finiteness, of that manifes- 
tation of power, would tend with a drea'dful force to 
repress and annihilate that conception : and it may 
well be imagined that if an exalted, adoring spirit 
could ever in eternity find himself at that limit, the 
perception would inflict inconceivable horror. 

2. TJnperceived extent of the universe. — When we 
reflect what kind of creature it is to whose view thus 
much of the universe has been disclosed ; that the 
physical organ of this very perception is of such a 
nature that it might, in consequence of the extinction 
of life, be reduced to dust within a few short days 
after it had admitted rays from the stars ; while, as to 
his mental part, he is, besides his moral debasement, 
at the very bottom of the gradation of probably innu- 
merable millions of intellectual races (certainly at the 
bottom, since a being inferior to man in intellect could 
not be rational) when we think of this, it will appear 



268 POSTER S THOUGHTS. 

Utterly improbable that the portion of the universe 
which such a creatuie can take knowledge of, should 
be more than a very diminutive tract in the vast ex- 
pansion of existence. 

3. Invisible creation around us. — Let a reflective 
man, when he stands in a garden, or a meadow, or a 
forest, or on the margin of a pool, consider what 
there is within the circuit of a very few feet around 
him, and that, too, exposed to the light, and with no 
veil for concealment from his sight, but nevertheless 
invisible to him. It is certain that within that little 
space there are organized beings, each of marvellous 
construction, independent of the rest, and endowed 
with the mysterious principle of vitality, to the amount 
of a number which could not have been told by units 
if there could have been a man so employed from the 
time of Adam to this hour ! Let him indulge for a 
moment the idea of such a perfect transformation of 
his faculties as that all this population should become 
visible to him, each and any individual being pre- 
sented to his perception as a distinct object of which 
he could take the same full cognizance as he now 
can of the large living creatures around him. What 
a perfectly new world ! What a stupendous crowd 
of sentient agents ! What an utter solitude, in com- 
parison, that world of living beings of which alone 
his senses had been competent to take any clear ac- 
count before ! And then let him consider whether 
it be in his power, without plunging into gross ab- 
surdity, to form any other idea of the creation and 
separate subsistence of these beings, than that each 
of them is the distinct object of the attention and the 
power of that one Spirit in which all things subsist. 
Let him, lastly, extend the view to the width of the 
whole terrestrial field, of our mundane system, of the 
universe — with the added thought how long such a 
creation has existed, and is to exist. 

4. Dependence on God for returning seasons,— ^^e^ 



OBSERVATION OP NATURE. 269 

are in our places here on the surface of the earth, to 
wait in total dependence for Him to cause the sea- 
sons to visit our abode, as helpless and impotent as 
particles of dust. If the Power that brings them on 
were to hold them back, we could only submit, or re- 
pine — and perish ! His will could strike with an in- 
sta-nt paralysis the whole moving system of Nature. 
Let there be a suspension of his agency, and all would 
stop ; or a change of it, and things would take a new 
and fearful course ! Yet we are apt to think of the 
certainty of the return of the desired season in some 
other light than that of the certainty that God will 
cause it to come. With a sort of passive irreligion 
we allow a something, conceived as an established 
order of Nature, to take the place of the Author and 
Ruler of Nature, forgetful that all this is nothing but 
the continually acting power of God ; and that noth- 
ing can be more absurd than the notion of God's hav- 
ing constituted a system to be, one moment, inde- 
pendent of himself. 

5. Change of spring grateful as surprising — its 
analogy. — Consider next this beautiful vernal sea- 
son; what a gloomy and unpromising scene and sea- 
son it arises out of! It is almost like creation from 
chaos ; like life from a state of death. If we might 
be allowed in a supposition so wide from probability 
as that a person should not know what season is to 
follow, while contemplating the scene, and feeling 
the rigors of winter, how difficult it would be for him 
to comprehend or believe that the darkness, dreari- 
ness, bleakness, and cold — the bare, desolate, and 
dead aspect of Nature could be so changed. If he 
could then in some kind of vision behold such a scene 
as that now spread over the worth — he would be dis- 
posed to say : " It can not be ; this is absolutely a new 
creation or another world !" Mi^ht we not take an 
instruction from this, to correct the judgments we are 
prone to form of the Divine government 1 We are 
23* 



270 Foster's thoughts, 

placed within one limited scene and period of the 
great succession of the Divine dispensations— a dark 
and gloomy one — a prevalence of evil. We do not 
see how it can be, that so much that is offensive and 
grievous, should be introductory to something de- 
lightful and glonous. " Look, how fixed ! how in- 
veterate ! how absolute ! how unchanging ! is not this 
a character of perpetuity !" If a better, nobler scene 
to follow is intimated by the spirit of prophecy, in fig- 
ures analogous to the beauties of spring, it is regarded 
with a kind of despondency, as if prophecy were but 
a kind of sacred poetry ; and is beheld as something 
to aggravate the gloom of the present, rather than to 
draw the mind forward in delightful hope. So we 
allow our judgments of the Divine goveniment — of 
the mighty field of it, and of its progressive periods 
' — to be formed very much upon an exclusive view* 
of the limited, dark portion of his dispensations which 
is immediately present to us ! But such judgments 
should be corrected by the spring blooming around 
us, so soon after the gloomy desolation of winter. 
The man that we were supposing so ignorant and 
incredulous, what would he now think of what he 
had thought then 1 

6. Bublimity of a mountain. — We behold a lofty 
mountain, which has been seen by so many eyes of 
shepherds, laborers, and fancy's musing children, that 
will see it no more. While we view the towering- 
majesty and unchangeable sedateness of its cliffs and 
sides, and the venerable gloom of forty centuries im- 
pressed on its brow, imparting a deeper solemnity to 
the sky, which sometimes darkens the summit with 
its clouds and thunders, the expression of our feelings 
is — how sublime ! 

7. Suhlimity of a cataract. — We have taken our 
stand near a great cataract; the thundering dash, the 
impetuous rebound, the furious turbulence, and the 
murky vapor — oh, what a spectacle ! sometimes, while 



OBSERVATION OP NATURE. 271 

we have gazed, the noise and mass of waters seemed 
to increase every moment, threatening to involve and 
annihilate us. We could fancy we heard preternat- 
ural sounds — the voice of death — through the roar. 
It seemed as if some hideous breach had taken place 
of the regular order of the system, and the element 
were rushing from its natural state into strange com- 
bustion, as the commencement of ruin. It gives a 
most striking representation of omnipotent vengeance 
pouring on enormous guilt. We wonder almost that 
the stream could change the calmness with which it 
flowed a little while before into such dreadful tumult, 
and that from such dreadful tumult it could subside 
into calmness again. 

8. Sublimity of the sea. — Perhaps we have seen 
the sea reposing in calmness. Its ample extent and 
glassy smoothness seeming almost to rival the sky 
expanded above it ; its depth to us unknown ; the 
thought that we stand near a gulf, capable in one 
hour of extinguishing all human life — and the thought 
that this vast body, now so peaceful, can move, can 
act with a force quite equal to its magnitude — inspire a 
sublime sentiment. Perhaps we have seen it in tem- 
pest, moving with a host of mountains to assault the 
eternal barrier which confines its power. If there 
were in reality spirits of the deep, it might suit them 
well to ride on these ridges, or howl in this raging 
foam. We have often seen the fury of little beings; 
but how insignificant in comparison of what we now 
behold, the world in a rage ! Indeed, we could al- 
most imagine that the great world is informed with 
a soul, and that these commotions express the agita- 
tions of its passions. Undoubtedly to mariners, haz- 
arded far off in the midst of such a scene, the sub- 
limity is lost in the danger. Horror is the sentiment 
with which they survey the vast flood, rolling in hide- 
ous steeps, and gulfs, and surges ; while at a dis- 
tance, on the gloomy limit of the view, despair is 



272 poster's thoughts. 

seen to stand, summoning forward still new billows 
without end. But, to a spectator on the land, the in- 
fluenice which breathes powerfully from the scene^ 
and which conscious danger would darken into hor- 
ror, is illuminated into awful sublimity, by the per- 
fect security of his situation. 

9. Suhlimity of the sun. — But the sun far trans- 
cends all these objects, and yet mingles no terror with 
the emotion of sublimity. His grandeur is expressed 
in that vivid fluctuation, and that profuse effulgence, 
which, so superior to the faintness of a merely re- 
flective luminary, are the signs of an original, inex- 
haustible fire. He has the aspect of a potentate, am- 
bitious in universal empire of nothing but the power 
of universal beneficence; and a stranger to the char- 
acter of our part of the creation would think that 
must be a pure and happy world which is blest with 
so grand a radiance ! What a pleasure to see him 
I'ise — but partially at first, as with a modest delay, 
till the smile which his appearance kindles over the 
world invites him to come forward. A certain de- 
mure coldness which a little while before gave every 
object a coy and solitary air, shutting up even the 
beauties of every flower from our sight, is changed 
by his full appearance into a kind of social gayety, 
and all things, animate and inanimate, seem to re- 
joice with us and around us. We view him climb- 
ing the clouds that sometimes appear on the horizon 
in the form of mountains, which he seems to set on 
fire as he climbs. In his course through the sky, he 
is sometimes seen shaded with clouds, as if passing 
under the umbrage of a great forest, and sometimes 
in the clear expanse, like a vast fountain of the ele- 
ment of which minds are made. From morning till 
evening he has the dominion of all that is grand and 
beautiful over the face of nature, and seems at once 
to make it his own, and to make it ours. His glories 
are augmented in his decline, as he passes down the 



OBSERVATION OF NATURE. 273 

sky amid a wilderness of beautiful clouds, the incense 
of the world, collected to honor him as he retires, 
till at last he seems to descend into a calm sea with 
amber shores — leaving, however, above the horizon 
a mellow lustre, soft and sweet, as the memory of a 
departed friend. How important and dignified should 
that course of action be, which is lighted by such a 
lamp ! How magnificent that system which required 
80 great a luminary — and to what a stupendous ele- 
vation will that thought rise, which must vault over 
such an orb of glory, in its way to contemplate a Be- 
ing still infinitely greater ! 

10. Suhlimity of the heavens. — When the night is 
come, we may look up to the sublime tranquillity of 
the heavens, where the stars are seen, like nightly 
fires of so many companies of spirits, pursuing their 
inquiries over the superior realms. We know not 
how far the reign of disorder extends, but the stars 
appear to be beyond its limits ; and, shining from 
their remote stations, give us information that the 
universe is wide enough for us to prosecute the ex- 
periment of existence, through thousands of stages, 
perhaps in far happier climes than this. Science is 
the rival of imagination here, and by teaching that 
these stars are suns, has given a new interest to the 
anticipation of eternity, which can supply such inex- 
haustible materials of intelligence and wonder. Yet 
these stars seem to confess that there must be still 
sublimer regions for the reception of spirits refined 
beyond the intercourse of all material lights; and 
even leave us to imagine that the whole material uni- 
verse itself is only a place where beings are appoint- 
ed to originate, and to be educated through succes- 
sive scenes, till passing over its utmost bounds into 
the immensity beyond, they there at length find them- 
selves in the immediate presence of the Divinity. 

11. Rising of the moon : train of refection suggest- 
ed hyit. — Have just seen the moon rise, and wish the 



274 FOSTER S THOUGHTS. 

image to be eternal. I never beheld her in so much 
character, nor with so much sentiment, all these thirty 
years that I have lived. Emerging from a dark mount- 
ain of clouds, she appeared in a dim sky, which gave 
a sombre tinge to her most majestic aspect. It seemed 
an aspect of solemn, retiring severity, which had long 
forgotten to smile ; the aspect of a being which had 
no sympathies with this world; of a being totally re- 
gardless of notice, and having long since with a gloomy 
dignity resigned the hope of doing any good, yet pro- 
ceeding with composed, unchangeable self-determina- 
tion to fulfil her destiny, and even now looking over 
the world at its accomplishment. (Happy part of 
the figure.) Felt it difficult to divest the moon of 
that personality and consciousness which my imagi- 
nation had recoo:nised from the first moment. With 
an effort, alternated the ideas of her being a mere 
lucid body, and of her being a conscious power, and 
felt the latter infinitely more interesting, and even 
more as if it were natural and real. Do not know 
how I found in the still shades, that dimmed in sol- 
emnness the lower part of her orb, the suggestion of 
immortality, and the wish to be a " disembodied pow- 
er." Question to the silent spirits of the night : 
" What is your manner of feeling as you contemplate 
all these scenes ] Are yours all ideas of absolute sci- 
ence, or do they swim in visionary fancy V The ap- 
prehension of soon losing my power of seeing a world 
so superabundant of sentiment and soul, is very mourn- 
ful. 

12. The fartliest excursion of the imagination does 
not reach the limit of the universe. — In conversation 

at W 's, had a splendid revel of imagination among 

the stars, caused by the mention of Herschel's tele- 
scope, and some astronomical facts asserted by him. 
The images, like Lee's poetry, were, from a basis jf 
excellence, flung away into extravagance. But it is 
a striking reflection, that when the wild dream of 



OBSERVATION OF NATURE «75 

imagination is past, the thing is still real: there is a 
sun ; there are stars and systems; innumerable worlds, 
on which the soberest depositions of science far tran- 
scend all the visions that fancy can open to enthu- 



siasm 



13. Vast disparity between the grandeur of Nature 
and the sentiments with which it is contemplated. — I 
have once more been throwing an eager gaze over 
the heaven of stars, with the alternate feelings of 
shiinking into an atom and expanding into an angel 
— what I but am now ! what I may he hereafter ! I 
am amazed that so transcendently awful a spectacle 
should seize attention so seldom, and affect the habit 
of thought so little. What is the most magnificent 
page of a heroic poem, compared with such an ex- 
panse of glorious images ? It seems the grand por- 
tico into that infinity in which the incomprehensible 
Being resides. Oh, that this soul should have within 
itself so little of that amplitude and that divine splen- 
dor which deify the scene that for ever environs it ! 
Mortifying, that my scope of existence is so little, 
with the feeling as if it might be so vast. The hem- 
isphere of thought surely ought to have some analogy 
with the hemisphere of vision. Most mortifying, that 
this wondrous, boundless universe should be so little 
mine, either by knowledge or by assimilating influ- 
ence ! But this vision gives a delightful omen of 
what the never-dying mind may at length behold — 
may at last become ! Oh, may I never again diso- 
bey or forget a Power whose existence pervades all 
yonder stars, and is their grandeur ! It is indeed pos- 
sible to engage his attention, and enjoy his friend- 
ship for ever ! In this comparison, what becomes of 
the importance of our human fi-iendships ] Yet still 
I am man, and the social, tender sentiment at this 
very moment says in my heart, '* There are one or 
two dear persons whom I can not but wish to havo 



276 poster's thoughts. 

for my affectionate, impassioned associates in explo- 
ring those divine regions. 

14. Grand conceit of the sun and a comet as con- 
scious heings, encountering each other in the circuit 
of the heavens. — Very grand idea, presenting the sun 
and a comet as conscious beings, of hostile or dubious 
determination toward each other. The comet, though 
a less orb, yet fraught with inextinguishable ardor, 
passes near the sun in his course, and dares to look 
him in the face. The aspect of fearless calmness with 
which the greater orb regards him. I have the im- 
age, but can not express it. — Fingal and Cathmor, &c. 

15. Description of an exquisitely soft an^ pensive 
evening. — It is as if the soul of Eloisa pervaded all 
the air. 

16. Little hird in a tree. — Bird, 'tis pity such a de- 
licious note should be silenced by winter, death, and, 
above all, by annihilation. I do not and I can not be- 
lieve that all these little spirits of melody are but the 
snuff of the grand taper of life, the mere vapor of ex- 
istence, to vanish for ever. 

17. On listening to the song of a hird. — Sweet bird ! 
it is a tender and entrancing note, as if breathed by 
the angel of love ; rather the infinite spirit of love in- 
spires thy bosom, and thou art right while thou sing- 
est to raise those innocent little eyes to heaven ! 

18. On seeing a hutterfy. — Saw a most beautiful 
butterfly, which I was half inclined to chase. Qu. 
Which would be the stronger excitement to such pur- 
suit, the curiosity raised by seeing such an object for 
the first time, or the feeling which, as now, is a relic 
of the interests and amusements of early youth ? 

19. Correspondences probable between remote parts 
of the universe. — One wonders in how many respects 
a real resemblance exists through the creation. One 
may doubt whether, if there be embodied inhabitants 
in the planets of other suns, or even in the other plan- 
ets of our own system, they have forms anything like 



OBSERVATION OF NATURE. 277 

ours. They may be square, orbicular, or of any other 
form. One analogy (physical analogy), however, 
strikes me as prevailing through every part of the 
universe that sight or science can reach, and that is 
— -fire. The fixed stars are the remotest material ex- 
istences we know of, and they certainly must be fire, 
like that which exists in a nearer part of the creation. 
This striking circumstance of similarity warrants the 
supposition of many more in the physical phenomena 
of the distant parts of the universe — and may not this 
physical conformity warrant the supposition of a sim- 
ilarity in the moral phenomena of the different re- 
gions of the creation ] 

20. Looking at dark and moving clouds. — Large 
masses of black cloud, following one another like a 
train of giants, in sullen silence, answering the azure 
smiles of Heaven that gleam between, with a Vulca- 
nian frown. 

21. Observation during a visit in a rural district. 
— Visit to a farmer. Has a wife and ten children. 
A great deal of mutual complacency between this 
pair. The children very pleasing. Played with 
several of them, particularly a delightful little boy 
and girl. Observed the various animals in the farm- 
yard Most amusing gambols of the little boy 

with a young dog. How soon children perceive if 
they are noticed. In many of their playful actions 
one can not tell how much is from the excitement 
they feel from being looked at and talked of, and 
how much is from the simple promptings of their own 
inclination. Observed a long time, in the fields, the 
down of thistles. Pleased in looking at the little 
feathery stars softly sailing through the air, and ap- 
pealing bright in the beams of the setting sun. But 
next observed the little sportive flies, that show life 
and will in their movements. What a stupendous dif- 
ference ! Talked on education. The advantages 
of a large family. Importance of making a family 

24 



278l poster's thoughts. 

a society, so as to preclude the need of other com- 
panions, and adscititious animation and adventure. 
Absolute necessity .of preventing as far as possible 
any communication of the children with those of the 
neighborhood. 

22. Development of truth from reflective ohserva- 
tion. — I have often noticed the process in my mind, 
when in the outset of a journey or day, I have set 
myself to observe whatever should fall within my 
sphere. For some time at first I can do no more 
than take an account of bare facts ; as, there is a 
house ; there a man ; there a tree ; such a speech 
uttered ; such an incident happens, &c., &c. After 
some time, however, a large enginery begins to work; 
I feel more than a simple perception of objects ; they 
become environed with an atmosphere, and shed forth 
an emanation. They come accompanied with trains 
of images, moral analogies, and a wide diffused, vital- 
ized, and indefinable kind of sentimentalism. Gen- 
erally, if one can compel the mind to the labor of the 
first part of the process, the interesting sequel will 
soon follow. After one has passed a few hours in 
this element of revelation, which presents this old. 
world like a new vision all around, one is ashamed 
of so many hundred walks and days which have been 
vacant of observation and reflection. 

23. Varied knowledge greatly increases the inter- 
est, and instruction of daily observation. — Power of 
mind and refinement of feeling being supposed equal, 
the number of a person's interests and classes of knowl- 
edge will have a great effect to extend or confine his 
sphere of observation. Was struck lately in remark- 
ing Lunell's superiority over me in this respect. In a 
given scene or walk, I should make original obser- 
vations belonging to the general laws of taste, to fan- 
cy, sentiment, moral reflection, religion ; so would he, 
with great success ; but, in addition, he would make 
observations in reference t) the arts, to. geographical 



OBSERVATION OF NATURE. 279 

comparison, to historical comparison, to commercial 
interest, to the artificial laws of elegance, to the ex- 
isting institutions of society. Every new class of 
knowledge, then, and every new subject of interest, 
becomes to an observer a new sense, to notice innu- 
merable facts and ideas, and consequently receive 
endless pleasurable and instructive hints, to which 
he had been else as insensible as a man asleep. This 
is like employing at once all the various modes of 
catching birds, instead of one only. It is another 
question, whether the mind's observing powers will 
act less advantageously in any one given direction 
from being diverted into so many directions. 

24. Difference between seeing and observing. — I am 
not observing, I am only seeing : for the beam of my 
eye is not charged with thought. 

25. On observing in a moonlight loalk the shadow 
of a great rock in apiece of water. — Astonishing num- 
ber of analogies with moral truth, strike one's ima- 
gination in wandering and musing through the scenes 
of nature. Or, is analogy a really existing fact, or 
merely an illusive creation of the mind within itself? 
Suggested in a moonlight walk, by observing a great 
rock reflected downward as far as its height upward, 
in a still piece of water at its foot, and by comparing 
this deception to that delusive magic of imagination 
which magnifies into double its proper dimensions of 
importance an object which is interesting. 

26. Thoughts in traversing rural scenes. — Repeat- 
ed feeling, on traversing vanous rural scenes, of the 
multitudinous, overwhelming vastness of the creation. 
What a world of images, suggestions, mysteries ! 

27. On observation. — The capabilities of any sphere 
of observation are in proportion to the force and num- 
ber of the observer's faculties, studies, interests. In 
one given extent of space, or in one walk, one per- 
son will be struck by five objects, another by ten, an- 
other by a hundred, some by none at all. 



280 Foster's thoughts. 

28. Vivifying injiuences of imagination. — Fancy 
makes vitality where it does not find it ; to it all things 
are alive. On this unfrequented vv^alk even the dry 
leaf that is stirred by a slight breath of air across the 
path, seems for a moment to have its little life and its 
tiny purpose. 

29. Diversion from natural to artijlcial scenes. — 
How much a traveller's attention is commonly en- 
grossed by the works of art, houses, carriages, &c. ; 
and how little is it directed to the endless varieties 
of nature. 

30. Lively fancy invests inanimate objects with life. 
— In the moment of uncontrolled fancy and feeling, 
one attributes perceptions like one's own to even in- 
animate objects ; for instance, that solitary tree ap- 
pears to me as if regretting its desolate, individual 
state. 

31. Mankind acquire most of their knowledge by 
sensation, and very little by reflection. — How little of 
our knowledge of mankind is derived from intention- 
al accurate observation. Most of it has, unsought, 
found its way into the mind from the continual pre- 
sentations of the objects to our unthinking view. It 
is a knowledge of sensation more than of reflection. 
Such knowledge is vague and superficial. There is 
no science of human nature in it. It is rather a habit 
of feeling than an act of intellect. It perceives ob- 
vious, palpable peculiarities ; but nice distinctions, 
delicate shades, are invisible to it. A philosopher 
will study all men with as accurate observation as he 
would some individual on whose dispositions, opin- 
ions, or whims, he believed his fate to depend. 

32. Advantage of the close study of character. — 
Very advantageous exercise to incite attentive obser- 
vation and sharpen the discriminating faculty, to com- 
pel one's self to sketch the character of each person 
one knows. 

33. Womeii oh&orve manners more than characters. 



OBSERVATION OF NATURE. 281 

— Some one said that women remarked characters 
more discriminately than men. I said, "They re- 
mark manners far more than characters." The men- 
tal force which might be compressed and pointed 
into a javelin, to pierce quite through a character, 
they splinter into little tiny darts to stick all over the 
features, complexion, attitude, drapery, &c. How 
often I have entered a room with the embarrassment 
of feeling that all my motions, gestures, postures, 
dress, &c., &c., &c., were critically appreciated, and 
self-complacently condemned ; but at the same time 
with the bold consciousness that the inquisition could 
reach no further. I have said with myself, ** My 
character, that is the man, laughs at you behind this 
veil ; I may be the devil for what you can tell ; and 
you would not perceive neither if I were an angel 
of light." 

34. Unusual appreciation of the Beauties of nature. 
— A young lady, whose perceptions were often nat- 
ural and coirect without her being able to appreciate 
them, said to a friend of mine, "I like to walk in the 
country with you because you are pleased with re- 
marking objects and talking of them. The compan- 
ions I have been accustomed to would say, when I 
wished to do this, ' Caroline, take less notice of the 
fields and more of the company ! ! !' " This young 
woman, amid much puerility, would frequently ex- 
press, unconscious of their value, feelings so natural 
and just as to be quite interesting, and sometimes 
even striking to. a philosopher. I compared her to 
the African, James Albert, who, when come to Eng- 
land and in possession of money, would give to a 
beggar as it might happen, a penny or a half-guinea, 
unapprized of the respective value of each. 

35, Philosophizing in observation. — "I know as 
well as you the folly of wandering for ever among the 
abstractions of philosophy, while truth's business and 
ours is with the real world. I am endeavoring to 

24* 



282 Foster's thoiTghts. 

learn tiTitli from observations on facts. I am trying 
to take off the hide of the actual world, but it must 
be curried by philosophy, you will grant me, to be 
made fit for all the useful purposes." 

36. Effect on one's ideas from musing so much suh 
dio. — A sort of vacant outline of greatness; a wide- 
ness of compass without solidity and exactness. 

37. Observing is reading the hook of nature. — 
" Looking at these objects is reading !" said I to my- 
self, while beholding sheep, meads, &c. " Is not 
this more than reading descriptions of these things'?" 
I had been regretting how little I had read respecting 
some things that can be seen. 

38. In appreciation of the wonderful laws of nature 
displayed in familiar things. — Mr. H. and I looked 
a considerable time with much curiosity and gratifi- 
cation in one of the inegularly cut pendent glasses 
of a lustre in which we saw the same beautiful dis- 
play of colored tints and brilliancies as in the prism, 
only more irregular and vaiiegated. It was not the 
glass toy we for a moment thought about, but the 
strange and beautiful vision, and those laws of nature 
that could produce it. A young lady present, of 
polished and expensive education, large fortune, and 
fond of personal and furniture ornaments, expressed 
sincerely her wonder at our childish fancy in finding 
anything to please us in such an object; and said she 
would reserve the first thing of this kind she should 
meet with, if no other children claimed it, for one of 
us. I did not fail to observe the circumstance, as 
supplying another instance, in addition to the ten 
thousand one has met with before, of persons who 
never saw the world around them, who are strangers 
to all its witcheries of beauty, and who, at the same 
time, indulge a ridiculous passion for the petty pro- 
ductions of art subserving vanity. 

39. Improvement of observation more important 
than its extension. — Important reflection in opposition 



OBSERVATION OP NATURE. 283 

to the regret of not having seen more of the world in 
each of its departments. " But I have seen far more 
of the world, that is, of event, character, and natural 
scenes, than I have tunied into knowledge — and thfs 
alone could be the value of seeing still more." 

40. A man of ideality diffuses his life through all 
things around him. — Made in conversation, but can 
not recollect sufficiently to write, a vivid and happy- 
display of what may be called physiopathy, a faculty 
of pervading all nature with one's own being, so as 
to have a perception, a life, and an agency, in all things. 
A person of such a mind stands and gazes at a tree, 
for instance, till the object becomes all wonderful, and 
is transfigured into something visionary and ideal. 
He is amazed what a tree is, how it could, from a 
little stem which a worm might crop, rise up into that 
majestic size, and how it could ramify into such mul- 
titudinous extent of boughs, twigs, and leaves. Fan- 
cy climbs up from its root like ivy, and twines round 
and round it, and extends to its remotest shoots and 
tremblino- folia2:e. But this is not all : the tree soon 
becomes to your imagination a coiiscious being, and 
looks at you, and communes with you; ideas cluster 
on each branch, meanings emanate from eveiy twig. 
Its tallness and size look conscious majesty; roaring 
in the wind its movements express tremendous emo- 
tion. In sunshine or soft showers it carries a gay, a 
tender, or a pensive character ; it frowns in winter 
on a gloomy day. If you observe a man of this or- 
der, though his body be a small thing, invested com- 
pletely with a little cloth, he expands his being in a 
grand circle all around him. He feels as if" he grew 
in the grass and flowers, and groves ; as if he stood 
on yonder distant mountain-top, conversing with 
clouds, or sublimely sporting among their imaged 
precipices, caverns, and ruins. He flows in that river, 
chafes in its cascades, smiles in the aqueous flowers, 
frisks in the fishes, and is sympathetic with evei*y bird. 



284 poster's thoughts. 



CHAPTER XIII. 

MISCELLANIES. 

1. Visit to Tliornhury cliurcli : reflections. — Went 
to Thornbuiy church, in order to ascend the tower, 
which is very high. Walked (Hughes and I) about 
awhile in the church. Saw one or two ancient mon- 
umental inscriptions, and looked with intense disgust, 
as I always do, at the stupid exhibitions of coarsely- 
executed heraldry. Ascended the tower. Observed 
both in the staircase of the tower, and on the leaden 
roof of the church, the initials of the names of visi- 
tants, some of whom must now have been dead a 
century. Reflections on the forbearance of Time, in 
not obliterating these memorials ; on the persons who 
cut or drew these rude remarks, their motives for 
doing it, their present state in some other world ; the 
succession of events and lives since these marks were 
made, &c. Waited a good, while before we could 
open the small door which opens from the top of the 
staircase to the platform of the tower. Amusing play 
with my own mind on the momentary expectation of 
beholding the wide, beautiful view, though just now 
confined in a narrow, darkish position. Difference 
as to the state of the mind, as to its perceptions, be- 
tween having, or not having, a little stone and mor- 
tar close around one. Came on the top. The rooks, 
jackdaws, or whatever they are that frequent this 
kind of buildings, flew away. So ere long we hope 
everything that belongs to the established church, at 
the approach of dissenters, will be off. 



MISCELLANIES. 285 

Admired the extensive view; looked down on the 
ruins of an ancient castle in the vicinity; frightful 
effect of looking directly down much lessened by the 
structure all around the top, of turrets, high parapet, 
and a slight projection just below the edge. Yet felt 
a sensation ; thought of this as a mode of execution 
for a criminal or a martyr. Endeavored to realize 
the state of being impelled to the edge and lifted 
over' it. Endeavored to imagine the state of a per- 
son whose dearest friend should perhaps, in conse- 
quence of some unfortunate movement of his, fall 
off; degree and nature of the feeling that would ef- 
fectually prompt him to throw himself after ; morality 
of the act. Qu. Whether either of us have a friend 
for whom one should have thus much feeling % Prob- 
ability, from sti-iking instances, that many mothers 
would do this for a child. 

Examined the decaying stone-work ; thought again 
of the lapse of ages ; appearance of sedate indiffer- 
ence to all things which these ancient structures wear 
to my imagination, which can not see them long with- 
out personifying them. Thickets of moss on the stone. 
Noticed with surprise a species of vegetation on the 
surface of several plates of iron. Observed with an 
emotion of pleasure the scar of thunder on one of 
the tun-ets. Sublime and enviable office, if such the 
voice of the angels who wield the thunder and light- 
ning. Descended from the tower, to which we shall 
probably ascend no more ; this partly a serious, pen- 
sive idea ; yet do not care ; what is the place, or any 
place, to us % We shall live when this is reduced to 
dust. 

2. Precipice reflected in a deep pit: analogy. — A 
picture of a precipice reflected in a deep pit, tran 
scendently beautiful ! A small cascade from the top 
falling and fi-etting on point after point of the rocky 
precipice. Most beautiful aquatic gi'een, in many 
recesses of the precipice nourished by this water. I 



286 poster's thoughts; 

wandered and gazed here five years since. Dismal, 
sombre look of the farthest point of the shelving rock, 
visible down through the dark water of the pit. Pret- 
ty innocent dimples on the surface of this pit, caused 
by a gentle breath of air. Analogy — Deep villain 
smiles. 

3. Ke flections from a surf ace of water : analogy. — 
Most magical succession, for several miles, of reflec- 
tions on the glassy surface of a canal, of the adjacent 
hill and wood scenery. One stripe of reflection of a 
distant scene, and a grand one, in a small, narrow 
piece of water in a field, so that this foreign piece 
seemed joined into the verdant field. Analogy — 
transient view of heaven in this common life. 

4. On seeing a halcyon. — Felt more respect for it 
on account of its classic celebrity, than a common bird. 
But how arbitrary are these distinctions ; the bird has 
no dignified consciousness of superiority, and, except 
for its beauty, possesses none. 

5. Observed with interest the tumults occasioned in 
a canal, by the sluice of the lock being opened ; but 
recollected what vast commotion must be caused 
by the rebound of Niagara, and instantly turned 
away. 

6. Effect of natural scenes on character. — Hope to 
derive considerable influence toward simplicity and 
refinement from my pathetic conversations with so 
many charming natural scenes. 

7. Objects of affection invested 2vith additional charms 
hy interesting associations. — Stood in a solitary grove, 
just opposite to a large cascade, on which I looked 
with long and fixed attention. Most interesting to 
observe the movements of my own mind, particularly 
as to the ideas which come from distant (unseen) ob- 
jects and scenes. The images of several favorite 
persons, but particularly one, came around me with 
an aspect inconceivably delicious. Tried to ascer- 
tain how much of this charm was added to these im- 



MISCELLANIES. 287 

ages by the influence of the beautiful scene where 
they appeared to me. 

8. Field of oaks : figure. — Most remarkable ap- 
pearance of a field full of oaks cut down, disbarked 
and embrowned by time. Gave me forcibly the idea 
of an assemblage of giant monsters; or of the skele- 
tons of a giants' field of battle. 

9. Moonbeams on the surface of a rive?'. — Exquis- 
itely curious appearance of the moonshine on the rip- 
pled surface of a broad river (Thames) like an infi- 
nite multitude of little fiery gems moving and spark- 
ling through endless confusion ; or like brilliant insects 
sporting, all intermingled and never tired or reposing, 
the most vivid frisks. At a great distance the ap- 
pearance is lost in an indistinct, difiiised light; but 
they are there as busy as they are here. How busy 
activity can go on in the other regions of the earth, 
or another part of the town, without knowing or car- 
ing whether it is so here or not ! 

10. On throwing large stones down a deep pity with 
apparently a great depth of water at the bottom, a 
dark, sullen glimmer of whicli the eye occasionally 
caught. I felt almost a shuddering sensation at the 
gloomy and furious sound of the watei,in the impet- 
uous commotion caused by these stones. Strongly 
imagined how it would be for myself to Pall down. 

11. Lantern in a dark night. — Interesting appear- 
ance of the tenebrious glimmer it throws on the near- 
est shrubs and trees ; and of the thick darkness that 
seems to lurk and frown close behind. 

12. Entered a large cavern, slophig down very 
steep, where a great number of human bones have 
been found. Saw a considerable quantity of them 
myself. This cavern was itself but lately found. It 
was broken into by digging away the rock. No con- 
jecture how or when these bones came there. 

13. Drops of rain falling on a sheet of water. — 
They have but the most transient effect on the water ; 



288 Foster's thoughts. 

they make a very slight impression of the moment, 
and then can be discerned no more. But observe 
these drops of rain falling on a meadow or garden : 
here they have an effect to heighten every color, and 
feed every growth. Is not this the difference be- 
tween the mind which the infinitude of sentiments 
and objects in this great world can never interest or 
alter, and that mind which feels the impression, and 
enriches itself with the value of them all 1 

14. Power of association. — A lady said she remem- 
bered a remarkable and romantic hill much more dis- 
tinctly now at the distance of a considerable number 
of years, from the impression made by a thunder- 
storm which happened when she was on the summit 
of this hill. I observed how advantageous it is to 
connect, if we could, some striking ?,ssociation with 
every idea or scene we wish to remember with per- 
manent interest. This is like framing and glazing 
the mental picture, and will preserve it an indefinite 
length of time. 

15. An observant man, in all his intercourse with 
society and the world, carries a pencil constantly in 
his hand, and, unperceived, marks on every person 
and thing the figure expressive of its value, and there- 
fore instantly on meeting that person or thing again, 
knows what kind and degree of attention to give it. 
This is to make something of experience. 

16. Selfish alliances easier and stronger than heneva- 
lent ones. — It is infinitely easier for any set of human 
beings to maintain a community of feeling in hostility 
to something else, than in benevolence toward one 
another ; for here no sacrifice is required of any one's 
self-interest. And it is certain that the subordinate 
portions of society have come to regard the occu- 
pants of the tracts of fertility and sunshine, the pos- 
sessors of opulence, splendor, and luxury, with a deep, 
settled, systematic aversion ; with a disposition to con- 
template in any other light tham that of a calamity an 



MISCELLANIES. 289 

extensive downfall of the favorites of fortune, when 
a brooding imagination figures such a thing as possi- 
ble ; and with but very slight monitions from con- 
science of the iniquity of the most tumultuary ac- 
complishment of such a catastrophe. 

17. ExJiibition of overstrained politeness. — We 
have been obliged again and again to endeavor to 
drive out of our imagination the idea of a meeting 
of friends in China, where the first mandarin bows 
to the floor, and then the second mandarin bows to the 
floor, and then the first mandarin bows again to the 
floor, and thus they go on till friendship is satisfied or 
patience tired. 

18. Worthy patrons important. — Either Home or 
Junius, we really forget which, somewhere says that 
if the very devil himself could be supposed to put 
himself in the place of advocate and vindicator of 
some point of justice, he ought to be, so far, support- 
ed. We can not agree to this, for the simple reason 
that the just cause would ultimately suffer greater 
injury by the dishonor it would contract, in the gen- 
eral estimation of mankind, from the character of its 
vindicator, than probably it would suffer from the 
wrong against which it would be vindicated. 

1^. Peculiarities of the age. — There is little dan- 
ger now of men's becoming recluses, ascetics, devo- 
tees ; systematically secluded from all attention to, 
)a,nd communication with, the active scenes of the 
world. For in this age men's own concerns — really 
and strictly their own — are becoming more implicated 
with the transactions of the wide, busy world. In 
the case of perhaps thousands of men in this country, 
their immediate interests — their proceedings — even 
their duty — are sensibly aifected by what may be 
doing on the other side of the globe — in South Amer- 
ica, or in Spain, Italy, Constantinople. The move- 
ments in such remote scenes send an effect like the 
far-extending iremulations of an earthquake, which 
2^ 



290 FOSTERS THOUGHTS. 

comes under the house, the business, the property, 

of men even here The pervading, connecting 

principle of community, throughout mankind, as one 
immense body, has become much more alive. It is 
becoming much more verified to ht one body, how- 
ever extended, by the quicker, stronger sensation 
which pervades the rest of it, from what affects any 
part. There is indeed much of diseased and irrita- 
ble sensibility ; it is as if the parts were a grievance 
to one another, and would quarrel ; as if, like the 
hyena at Paris, the great animal would devour one 
of its own limbs. But still the great body is much 
more sensibly made to feel that it has its existence in 
all its parts. . .-•. . Christian benevolence is now pros- 
ecuting its operations, not only with far greater ac- 
tivity and multiplicity of efforts, but on a far wider 
plan. Thus the religious interests, thoughts and dis- 
course of private individuals, are drawn out into some 
connexion, almost whether they will or not, with nu- 
merous proceedings and occurrences both at home 
and far off. 

20. Inequalities of the race. — Whatever you may 
say or fancy about the equality of the race, it needs 
only a little civilization to make one of them look 
down from a tower, and the other to look up through 
a grate. 

21. A malignant observation of the world. — At- 
tention may be exercised on the actions, characters, 
and events, among mankind, in the direct service of 
the evil passions ; in the disposition of a savage beast, 
or an evil spirit, in a keen watchfulness to descry 
weakness, in order to make it a prey ; in an attentive 
observation of mistake, ignorance, carelessness, or 
untoward accidents — in order to seize with remorse- 
less selfishness, unjust advantages ; in a penetrating 
inquisition into men's conduct and character, in order 
to blast them ; or in lighter mood to turn them in- 
discriminately to ridicule. Or there may be such an 



MISCELLANIES. 291 

exercise in the temper of envy, jealousy, or revenge ; 
(or somewhat more excusably, but still mischievous- 
ly), for the purpose of exalting the observer in his ovv^n 
estimation. 

22. Dormant elements of evil in society. — There 
is a large proportion of human strength and feeling 
not in vital combination w^ith the social system, but 
aloof from it, looking at it with "gloomy and malign 
regard ;*' in a state progressive toward a fitness to be 
impelled against it with a dreadful shock, in the event 
of any great convulsion, that should set loose the 
legion of daring, desperate, and powerful spirits, to 
fire and lead the masses to its demolition. There 
have not been wanting examples to show with what 
fearful effect this hostility may come into action, in 
the crisis of the fate of the nation's ancient system; 
where this alienated portion of its own people, rush- 
ing in, have revenged upon it the neglect of their 
tuition ; that neglect which had abandoned them to 
so utter a "lack of knowledge," that they really un- 
derstood no better than to expect their own solid ad- 
vantage in general havoc and disorder. 

23. An oppressed nation. — A nation tormented, 
plundered, exhausted, crushed down to extreme mis- 
ery under the hoofs of the whole troop of centaurs in 
authority. 

24. Contrasted conditions of society. — I am sorry not 
to have gained the knowledge which thirty or forty 
shillings would have purchased in London. At the 
expense of so much spent in charity, a person might 
have visited just once eight or ten of those sad re- 
tirements in darkness in dark alleys, where, in gar- 
rets and cellars, thousands of wretched families are 
dying of famine and disease. It would be most pain- 
ful, however, to see these miseries without the pow- 
er to supply any effectual relief. At the very same 
time you may see a succession which seems to have no 
end, of splendid mansions, equipages, liveries ; you 



292 Foster's thoughts. 

may scent the effluvia of preparing feasts; you may 
hear of fortunes, levees, preferments, pensions, cor- 
poration dinners, royal hunts, &c., &c., numerous 
beyond the devil's own arithmetic to calculate. This 
whole view of society might be called the devil's 
pi ay -h ill ; for surely this world might be deemed a 
vast theatre, in which he, as manager, conducts the 
endless, horrible drama of laughing and suffering, 
while the diabolical satyrs of power, wealth and 
pride, are dancing round their dying victims ; a 
spectacle and an amusement for which the infernals 
will pay him liberal thanks. 

25. Imagined disclosure of the machinations and 
motives of rulers and courts. — If statesmen, including 
ministers, popular leaders, ambassadors, &c., would 
pubHsh, before they go in the triumph of virtue to 
the "last audit," or leave to be published after they 
are gone, each a frank exposition of motives, cabals, 
and manoeuvres, it would give dignity to that blind 
adoration of power and rank in which mankind have 
always superstitiously lived, by supplying just reasons 
for that adoration. It would also give a new aspect 
to history ; and perhaps might tend to a happy ex- 
orcism of that evil spirit which has never allowed 
nations to remain at peace. 

26. Responsibility of states, — Assuredly there will 
be persons found to *be summoned forth as account- 
able for that conduct of states which we are contem- 
plating. Such a moral agency could not throw off 
its responsibility into the air, to be dissipated and lost 
like the black smoke of forges or volcanoes. 

27. Unworthy objects of war. — There may occur 
to his view some inconsiderable island, the haunt of 
fatal diseases, and rendered productive by means in- 
volving the most flagrant iniquity; an iniquity which 
it avenges by opening a premature grave for many 
of his countrymen, and by being a moral corrupter 
of the rest. Such an infested spot, nevertheless, may 



MISCELLANIES. 293 

have been one of the most material objects of a wide- 
ly destructive war,.which has in effect sunk incalcu- 
lable treasure in the sea, and in the sands, ditches, 
and fields of plague-infested shores ; with a dreadful 
sacnfice of blood, life, and all the best moral feelings 
and habits. Its possession, perhaps, was the chief 
piize and triumph of all the grand exertion, the equiv- 
alent for all the cost, misery, and crime. 

28. War : its horrors ; slight grounds. — A certain 
brook or swamp in the wilderness, or a stripe of 
waste, or the settlement of boundaiies in respect to 
some insignificant traffic, was difficult of adjustment 
between jealous, irritated, and mutually incursive 
neighbors ; and therefore national honor and interest 
equally required that war should be lighted up by 
land and sea, through several quarters of the globe. 
Or a dissension may have arisen upon the matter of 
some petty tax on an article of commerce ; an abso- 
lute will had been rashly signified on the claim ; pride 
had committed itself, and was peremptory for persist- 
ing ; and the resolution was to be prosecuted through 
a wide tempest of destruction protracted perhaps 
many years ; and only ending in the forced abandon- 
ment, by the leading power concerned, of infinitely 
more than war had been made in the determination 
not to forego ; and after an absolutely fathomless 
amount of every kind of cost, financial and moral, in 
this progress to final frustration. But there would 
be no end of recounting facts of this order. 

However whimsical it may appear to recollect that 
the great bu'siness of war is slaughter ; however de- 
plorably low-minded it may appear to regard all the 
splendor of fame with which war has been blazoned 
much in the same light as the gilding of that hideous 
idol to which the Mexicans sacrificed their human 
hecatombs ; however foolish it may be thought to 
make a difficulty of consenting to merge the eternal 
laws of morality in the policy of states ; and however 
25* 



294 poster's thoughts. 

presumptuous it may seem to condemn so many privi- 
leged, and eloquent, and learned, and reverend person- 
ages, as any and every war is sure to find its advo- 
cates — it remains an obstinate fact, that there are 
some men of such perverted perceptions as to appre- 
hend that revenge, rage, and cruelty, blood and fire, 
w^ounds, shrieks, groans, and death, with an infinite 
accompaniment of collateral crimes and miseries, are 
the elements of what so many besotted mortals have 
worshipped in every age under the title of " glorious 
war." To be told that this isjustthe commonplace with 
which dull and envious moralists have always railed 
against martial glory, will not in the slightest degree 
modify their apprehension of a plain matter of fact. 
What signifies it whether moralists are dull, envious, 
and dealers in commonplace, or not ? No matter who 
says it, nor from what motive ; the fact is, that war 
consists of the components here enumerated, and is 
therefore an infernal abomination, when maintained 
for any object, and according to any measures, not 
honestly within the absolute necessities of defence. 
In these justifying necessities, we include the peril to 
which another nation with perfect innocence on its 
part may be exposed, from the injustice of a third 
power ; as in the instance of the Dutch people, saved 
by Elizabeth from being destroyed by Spain. Now 
it needs not be said that wars, justifiable, on either 
side, on the pure principles of lawful defence, are 
the rarest things in history. Whole centuries all over 
darkened with the horrors of war may be explored 
from beginning to end, without perhaps finding two 
instances in which any one belligerent power can be 
pronounced to have adopted every precaution, and 
made every effort, concession, and sacrifice, required 
by Christian morality, in order to avoid war. 

The laws of this institution are fundamental and 
absolute, forming the primary obligation on all its 
believers, and reducing all other rules of action to 



MISCELLANIES. 295 

find their place as they can, in due subordination — 
or to find no place at all Let an ambitious des- 
pot, or a profligate ministry, only give out the word 
that we must be at war with this or the other nation 

and then a man who has no personal complaint 

against any living thing of that nation, who may not 
be certain it has committed any real injury against 
his own nation or government, nay, who possibly may 
be convinced by facts against which he can not shut 
his eyes, that his own nation or government is sub- 
stantially in the wrong — then this man, under the 
sanction of the word war, may, with a conscience en- 
tirely unconcerned, immediately go and cut down 
human beings as he would cut down a copse ! 

29. Scojye and dignity of metaphysical inquiries. — 
Metaphysical speculation tiies to resolve all consti- 
tuted things into their general elements, and those 
elements into the ultimate mysterious element of 
substance, thus leaving behind the various orders and 
modes of being, to contemplate being itself in its es- 
sence. It 'retires a while from the consideration of 
truth, as predicated of particular subjects, to explore 
those unalterable and universal relations of ideas 
which must be the primary principles of all truth. . . . 
In short, metaphysical inquiry attempts to trace things 
to the very first stage in which they can, even to the 
most penetrating intelligences, be the subjects of a 
thought, a doubt, or a proposition ; that profoundest 
abstraction, where they stand on the first step of dis- 
tinction and remove from nonentity, and where that 
one question might be put concerning them, the an- 
swer to which would leave no further question pos- 
sible. And having thus abstracted and penetrated 
to the state of pure entity, the speculation wrould 
come back, tracing it into all its modes and relations ; 
till at last metaphysical truth, approaching nearer and 
nearer to the sphere of our immediate knowledge, 
terminates en the confines of distinct sciences and ob- 



296 poster's thoughts. 

vious realities. Now it would seem evident that this 
inquiry into primary truth must surpass, in point of 
dignity, all other speculations. If any man could 
carry his discoveries as far, and make his proofs as 
strong, in the metaphysical world, as Newton did in 
the physical, he would be an incomparably greater 
man than even Newton. 

30. All subjects resolvahle into first principles. — 
All subjects have first principles, toward which an 
acute mind feels its investigation inevitably tending, 
and all first principles are, if investigated to their ex- 
treme refinement, metaphysical. The tendency of 
thought toward the ascertaining of these first princi- 
ples in every inquiry, as contrasted with a disposition 
to pass (though perhaps very elegantly or rhetorically) 
over the surface of a subject, is one of the strongest 
points of distinction between a vigorous intellect and 
a feeble one. 

31. Limits to metapliysical inquiries. — It is also 
true that an acute man who will absolutely prose- 
cute the metaphysic of every subject to the last pos- 
sible extreme, with a kind of rebellion against the 
very laws and limits of Nature, in contempt of his 
senses, of experience, of the universal perceptions of 
mankind, and of Divine revelation, may reason him- 
self into a vacuity where he will feel as if he were 
sinking out of the creation. Hume was such an ex- 
ample ; but we might cite Locke and Reid, and some 
other illustrious men, who have terminated their long 
sweep of abstract thinking as much in the spirit of 
sound sense and rational belief as they began. 

32. Metaphysics a means of intellectual discipline. 
— It is so evident from the nature of things, and the 
whole history of philosophy, that they must in a great 
measure fail, when extended beyond certain contract- 
ed limits, that it is less for the portion of direct met- 
aphysical science which they can ascertain, than for 
their general effect on the thinking powers, that 



MISCELLANIES. 297 

we deem them a valuable part of intellectual disci- 
pline. 

33. Practical truths not recondite. — The truths con- 
nected with piety and the social duties, with the means 
of personal happiness, and the method of securing an 
ulterior condition of progressive perfection and feli- 
city, lie at the very surface of moral inquiries ; like the 
fruits and precious stores of the vegetable kingdom, 
they are necessary to supply inevitable wants, and are 
placed, by Divine Benevolence, within the reach of 
the meanest individual. 

34. Mohammedanism. — When he saw its pretend- 
ed sacred book supplanting the revelation of God by 
a fan-ago of ridiculous trifles, vile legends, and viler 
precepts, mixed wdth some magnificent ideas, stolen 
for the base purpose from that revelation, like the 
holy vessels of the temple brought in to assist the de- 
bauch of Belshazzar and his lords ; when he saw a 
detestable impostor acknowledged and almost adored 
in the office of supreme prophet and intercessor ; this 
imposture enjoined in the name of God to be enforced 
as far as the power of its believers can reach with fire 
and sword ; the happiness of another world promised 
to every sanguinary fanatic that dies in this cause, or 
even in any war that a Mohammedan tyrant may 
choose to wage ; the representation of that other 
world accommodated to the notions and tastes of a 
horde of barbarians ; and, as a natural and just con- 
sequence of all, the whole social economy, after the 
energy and zeal of conquest had evaporated, living 
in a vast sink of ignorance, depravity, and wretch- 
edness. 

35 Remarkahle manifestation of mind in a child. 
—What a divine enchantment there is mmind in ev- 
ery age and form ! I have felt it this morning with 
little Sarah Gibbs, a child of three or four years old, 
who can not yet articulate plainly, but of very ex- 
traordinary character for observation, though tfulness, 



298 poster's thoughts. 

and grave, deep passions. I took her on my knee, 
played with her hands, stroked her cheek, and never 
felt so much interested by any child of her age. Not 
that she said anything scarcely ; for though delighted 
as I knew with the attention of a person to whom 
she had been led to attach an idea of importance, she 
was serious, confused, and, as it were, self-inclosed ; 
but I was certain that I held on my knee a being sig- 
nally marked from her coevals by an ample and deep- 
toned nature, of which perhaps the country could not 
furnish a parallel. She has a strange accuracy and 
discrimination in her remarks, and a sort of dignity 
of character which is not mingled with vanity, but 
which puts one on terms of care with her, and makes 
one afraid to treat her as a child, or do or say any- 
thing which may offend her sense of character. She 
is affectionate to enthusiasm, but without any childish 
playfulness. When angry, she is not petulant, but 
incensed. She is loquacious often with her compan- 
ions and her schoolmistress, but still it is all thought 
and no frisk. She is a favorite with them all. The 
expression of her countenance is so serious, that one 
might think it impossible for her to smile; Indeed, I 
have never seen her smile. Her parents are uncul- 
tivated people of the lower class, who have no per- 
ception of the value of such a jewel, and will proba- 
bly throw it away. (Should not one be very much 
inclined to cite such an instance as something very 
like a proof that children are born with very different 
proportions of the capability of mind V) 

36. Influence of music. — Mr. R , who has travel- 
led over many parts of England, Scotland, and Wales, 
told me he had, at one time, a wish and a project 
to travel over France and the rest of the continent. 
While musing on this favorite design, he one day en- 
tered the cathedral, at Worcester, in the time of ser- 
vice. Walking in the aisles, and listening to the or- 
gan which affected him very sensibly, his wish to 



MISCELLANIES. 299 

travel began to glow and swell in his mind into an 
almost overwxielming passion, which bore him irre- 
sistibly to a determination. He could not have felt 
more if he had seen an apparition, or heard a voice 
from the sky. Every idea on the subject seemed to 
present itself to his mind with a surprising vivid clear- 
ness and force ; and he believes that from that mo- 
ment nothing could have prevented his undertaking 
the enterprise but the commencement of the war. 

This seemed to me a happy illustration and proof 
of what I had maintained a few days before, in a con- 
versation on music, that it powerfully reinforces any 
passion which the mind is at the time indulging, or to 
which it is predisposed. This was maintained in 
opposition to several amateurs of music, who asserted 
that sacred music has a powerful tendency to pro- 
duce, by its own influence, devotional feeling. They 
had mentioned, with strong approbation, a pair of 
reverend divines, who commonly make a small con- 
cert on the Sunday evening, and choose sacred mu- 
sic, as adapted to the day. The devotional effect of 
any music, except on devotional minds, was utterly 
denied and disproved j and it was asserted that a 
young man, very susceptible to the impressions of 
music, if inclined to vicious pleasures, would proba- 
bly feel the sacred music inflame to intensity, and, at 
the same time, invest with a kind of vicious, seduc- 
tive refinement, the propensities which would lead 
him from the concert to the brothel. By the same 
rule, a devout man, who should be strongly aff'ected 
by music, would probably, if other circumstances in 
the situation did not counteract, feel his devotion 
augmented by pathetic or solemn music. 

37. Teter in prison. — Follow him thither with com- 
passion. Imagine him looking (if there was a suffi- 
cient glimmer of light) round on the walls of his new 
abode, of impregnable thickness, with strong bars, 
a dreary dismal shade — ominous sounds ; and chains 



300 Foster's thoughts. 

on his limbs. *' This it is," he might say, " to be an 
avowed and faithful servant of Him that died for me." 
But what if he said further, " Well I would rather be 
here, and be thus, for such a cause, than be the lord 
of Herod's or of Caesar's palace. While the body- 
is in a palace, the soul may be in prison; and while 
the body is in prison, the soul may be in a palace." 
** He felt no restless agitation ; cast no desponding 
looks at the bars, the fetters, the walls, the guards ; 
indulged in no desperate imaginations or vain im- 
plorings. He slept between two soldiers, and in his 
chains, and under the doom of an inexorable tyrant," 
" The angel of the Lord came upon him, and a light 
shined in the prison." His entrance to Peter was 
with no tumult, and ostentation of power. It was so 
calm and silent that he did not awake. The angrel 
"smote him on the side," and summoned him to rise. 
But it was a gentle violence. Not so he, or some 
of his celestial associates, had smitten the assailants 
of Lot Not so the army of Senacheiib — not so he 
smote Herod, A gentle violence ! Methinks an 
emblem of the death of a Christian ; a soft blow to 
emancipate him from the p.rison of mortality — to sum- 
mon and raise him to eternal liberty, to the amplitude 
of heaven. There was to be another time when Pe- 
ter would want the visit of such a messenger. And 
there will be a time when we also shall want it; when 
we shall have to go out from the prison-house of mor- 
tality — and from the world itself; and shall need such 
a messenger to be with us, and not to leave us — to 
accompany us in an immense and amazing journey ; 
that whereas Peter came to be delightedly and col- 
lectedly sensible of the grand intervention, when he 
found himself alone in the street, we may become 
sensible of the wondrous reality of.it, by finding 
ourselves in the presence of saints and angels, and 
their Supreme Lord, '* Peter's deliverance," 

38. Powers of language. — Qy. Are the powers — 



MISCELLANIES. . 301 

the capacity of human language limited by any other 
bounds than those which limit the mind's powers of 
conception ] Is there within the possibility of hu- 
man conception a certain order of ideas which no 
combinations of language could express] Would 
the English language, for example, in its strongest 
possible stinicture absolutely sink and fail under such 
conceptions as we may imagine a mighty spirit of the 
superior or nether regions to utter — so frail as not to 
make these ideas distinctly apparent to the human 
mind, supposing all the while that the mind could 
fully admit and comprehend these ideas,if there were 
any adequate vehicle to convey them 1 Could divine 
inspiration itself, without changing the structure of 
the mind, impart to it such ideas as no language could 
express ] If a poet were to come into the world en- 
dowed with a genius, suppose ten times more sub- 
lime than Milton's, must he not abandon the attempt 
at composition in despair, from finding that language, 
like a feeble tool, breaks in his hand — from finding 
that when he attempts to pour any of his mental fluid 
into the vessel of language, that vessel in a moment 
melts or bursts ; from finding, that though he is Her- 
cules every inch, he is armed but with a distaff, and 
can not give his mighty strength its proportional ef- 
fect without his club ] 

39. " Omnis in hoc,^ is the description of the only 
character that I can give myself to entirely. Green 
was veiy much this ; a mind not only of deep tone, 
but always so. " Omnis in hoc ;^' yes, I want in my 
associate something like continuous emotion. I hate 
a neutral reposing state of the passions, that kind of 
tranquillity which is merely the absence of all pregnant 
sentiment. I pass some time with a friend in the 
high excitement of interesting, perhaps impassioned 
conversation ; next day I revisit this friend for the 
sequel of this energetic season, myself glowing vnth 
the same feelings still. Well, with my friend the 
26 



302 

enthusiasm is all gone by ; his feelings are tame and 
easy ; yesterday he was grave, ardent, every particle 
imbued with sentiment ; we became interested to the 
pitch of intensity; I thought, "Let this become our 
habit and we s'hall become sublime." To-day he is 
in an easy, careless mood ; the heroic episode is past 
and over ; he is perhaps sprightly and flippant; his 
voice has recovered from its tone of soul ; and he is 
perhaps complacently busy about some mere trifles. 
My heart shuts itself up and feels a painful chill ; I 
am glad to be gone to indulge alone my musings of 
regret and insulation. Women have more of this 
discontinuity than men. No one can be more than 
interested to-day, and degagee to-morrow. 

A man of melancholy feelings peculiarly feels this 
revulsion, with those who are pensive only as an oc- 
casional sentiment; not like himself, as a habit. His 
associates should all be of his own character. He 
emphatically wants unity of character in his friend. 

I have more of habitual character than you . 

A person would better know where in the mental 
world to find me. The ascendant interest of yester- 
day is the ascendant interest of to-day too. It is un- 
fortunate in character for its nobler aspects to be 
transient. You have not sufficiently a grand com- 
manding principle of seriousness to pervade and har- 
monize the total of your habits. A love of the sub- 
lime is with you a sentiment; with me it is a passion. 
In the gayety of innocence you sport at liberty, for- 
getful that a moral and immortal being should have 
all its faculties and feelings concentrated toward an 
important purpose. No one has given all the passion 
due to great objects till trivial ones have ceased to 
amuse him into even a temporary oblivion of them. 
Yes, after attention to the most solemn speculations, 
you can escape so completely from their fascination, 
so soon brighten oft' their interesting sombre, and enter 
into a mirthful party, and laugh with the utmost glee 



MISCELLANIES. 303 

and gaiete du coeur. Not so I; not so Edwin, if he 
were a person of real life ; not so Howard ; not so 
any one who is seized irrecoverably with a spirit of 
ardor till death. Yes, my friend, you let youi'self be 
what may happen, rather than deliberately determine 
to be what you should, and all you can. 

40, Defence of the utilitarian theory. — Behold, on 
that eminence, the temple of utility — let us approach 
and enter. '* I see no open, regular road thither.'* 
•* True, on this side there is no regular approach ; 
but we can not gain the other side, and there is a 
most uv^enX reasonioY us to come up to the holy edi- 
fice. What then ] let us open for ourselves a way ; 
let us cut through the tangled fence; let us sacrifice 
a beautiful shrub, or even a fruit-tree, to clear our- 
selves a path, rather than lose forever an inestimable 
advantage." — "But granting your principle to be ab- 
stractly just, there is this serious objection. The right 
application of it in cases of real life will depend on 
delicate conscience and enlightened calculation. It 
is needless to remark how few of mankind are thus 
qualified." — " It is very true, and it is as if you were 
pointing out to travellers the way to a town, lying be- 
yond a wide and wilderness tract of country ; it passes 
through the intricacies of a solitary forest, and by 
some very dangerous spots. Two persons inquire 
of you the way to the town. The first is a child. 
You instantly direct him to go the plain great road, 
without so much as intimating that there is any other 
or shorter way. The other person is a man; a man 
of sense, with * his eyes about him ;' you say to him, 
* I commonly direct travellers to keep the great road, 
as the most certain and safe, though tedious ; but I 
think such a man as you might venture a shorter path. 
Observe me carefully ; having walked such a distance 
along the side of the hill yonder, you must turn to 
the right, just by an immensely large oak; then wind 
through the thick shade, by a path you will perceive 



304 FOSTER*S THOUGHTS. 

if you observe attentively, till you come suddenly to 
the edge of a great precipice ; pass carefully along 
the edge of it till you descend into a glen; there you 
will observe an old wooden bridge across a deep 
water, a little below a cataract, the sound of which 
will seem to make the bridge tremble as you pass ; 
but it trembles because it is crazy ; be careful, there- 
fore, to step softly. You must then pass by the ruins 
of an abbey, and advance forward over a tract of 
rough ground till you come, &c., &c., &c.' Thus in 
morals I mean to assert that in some rare instances 
the path of duty may lie in a more direct line to its 
grand object, than by the letter of specific laws; but 
that perhaps only the eminently conscientious and 
intelligent few are competent to judge when this ex- 
ception takes place, and how to dispose of it proper- 
ly. * This is a curious kind of prerogative in morals 
in favor of your illumines.' I can not help it. I 
know that my principle, like every other grand prin- 
ciple, may be perverted to a fatal consequence, yet 
I can not relinquish it; for if it should ever happen 
(and the case has happened) that the letter of a moral 
law, owing to some extraordinary concurrence of 
circumstances, should stand in evident opposition to 
that grand utility, for the promotion of which all moral 
rules were appointed by the supreme Governor, it 
can not be a question which ought to be sacrificed." 

41. Supposition of angelic companionship^ — De- 
lightful conversational revery on the idea of an angel 
living, walking, conversing with one for a month. 
Month of ecstatic sentiment! What profound and 
incurable regrets for his going away ! 

42. " Well, but this qualification might be attained, 
if a man would exert sufficient application." — " Ah, 
madam, the field of possibiHty is so beset round with 
a hedge of thorny ifs.^* 

43. Logic efficient in persuasion. — There is an ar- 
gumentative way, not only of discussing to ascertain 



MISCELLANIES. 305 

truth, but also of enforcing acknowledged and familiar 
truth. — Baxter — Law. 

44. Intellectual pursuits aided hij the affections — 
The successes of intellectual effort are never so great 
as when aided by the affections that animate social 
converse. 

45. All reasoning is retrospect ; it consists in the 
application of facts and principles previously known. 
This will show the very great importance of knowl- 
edge, especially that kind which is called experience. 

46. Figure of an equable temper. — The equanimity 
which a few persons preserve through the diversities 
of prosperous and adverse life, reminds me of certain 
aquatic plants which spread their tops on the surface 
of the water, and with wonderful elasticity keep the 
surface still, if the water swells or if it falls. 

47. Adversity ! thou thistle of life, thou too art 
crowned ; first with a flower, then with down. 

48. A man of genius may sometimes suffer Xmis- 
erable sterility ; but at other times he will feel him- 
self the maofician of thougcht. Luminous ideas will 
dart from the intellectual firmament, just as if the 
stars were falling; around him ; sometimes he must 
think by mental moonlight, but sometimes his ideas 
reflect the solar splendors. 

49. Casual thoughts are sometimes of great value. 
— One of these may prove the key to open for us a 
yet unknown apartment in the palace of truth, or a 
yet unexplored tract in the paradise of sentiment that 
environs it. 

50. Self complaisant ignorance in judging distin- 
guished characters. — I heard lately an educated lady 
say she did not admire Shakspere at all. I admired 
her. It has often struck me as curious to observe the 
entire, unhesitating self-complacency with which 
characters assume to admire and detest, in opposition 
to the concurrent opinions of all the most enlighten- 
ed and thinking minds With all this self-satis- 

26* 



306 poster's thoughts. 

fied feeling, the most ignorant, or the most illiberal, 
hearers of sermons pronounce on the talents, &c., of 
the preachers. 

51. Fragment of a letter, never sent^ to a friend. — 
In a lonely large apartment I write by a glimmer- 
ing taper, too feeble to dispel the spectres which im- 
agination descries, flitting or hovering in the twilight 
of the remote corners. The wind howls without, 
and at intervals I hear a distant bell, tolling amid 
antiquity and graves. The place and the hour might 
suit well for an appointed interview with a ghost, com- 
ing to reveal, though obscurely, " the secrets of the 
world unknown." I almost fancy 1 perceive his ap- 
proach ; a certain trembling consciousness seems to 
breathe through the air ; an indistinct sullen sound, 
like the tread of unseen footsteps, passes along the 
ground, and seems to come toward me ; I fearfully 

lool^p — and behold ! ! Thus abruptly last night 

I stuped, not without reason surely. 

52. Most interesting idea, that of renovated being. 
— I am not the person I was, the past is nothing to 
me ; the past / is not the present // I have transited 
into another person ; I am my own phoenix. 

53. Pleasure of recognition. — The feeling which 
accompanies the recognition of an object that is not 
in itself interesting, but where the interest is in the 
circumstance of recognition. I have a feeling of this 
kind in seeing what I believe to be the same butter- 
fly again at a considerable distance from where I saw 
it before. 

54. Misapprehension of friends. — One limitation 
to the noble indifference to what people think and 
say of us. Every generous mind will regret those 
misapprehensions of its conduct, which occasion mor- 
tification to the person who misapprehends — as that 
a person you respect should, through some mistake, 
believe that you have ridiculed or injured him. 

56. On the question of the equality of men and 



MISCELLANIES. 307 

women. — A lady, in answer to my very serious rea- 
soning to prove that, if naturally equal, nothing can 
bring the woman to an actual equality, but the same 
course of vigorous mental exertion which profession- 
al men are obliged to go through, said, "Well, we 
shall be content to occupy a lower ground of intel- 
lectual character and attainment." 1 replied, " You 
may then be consoled ; we from that more elevated 
region shall sometimes, in the intervals of our grand 
interests and adventures, look down complacently 
and converse with you, till the emphasis of some 
momentous subject return, and call us to transact with 
our equals. It will be ours to inhabit the paradise 
on the high summit of that mount which you will 
never climb; we shall eat habitually the fruit of the 
trees of knowledge, but we will kindly sometimes 
throw you a few apples down the declivity." 

56. Amusing idea, of flaying a concert of people ^ 
that is, drawing forth the various passions, prejudices, 
&c., of a small company of persons, and mixing them, 
soothing them, exciting them, and, in short, entirely 
playing all their characters at the will, and by the 
unnoticed influence of the player. 

57. Observation during a walk of a few miles alone. 
— This glaring, steady sunshine gives an indistinct 
sameness to all objects, very like a frequent state of 
my mind, distended in a fixed, general, vacant stare, 
incapable of individualizing. Hughes described it 
very correctly once, after hearing me perform a men- 
tal exercise while my mind was in this state : " All 
luminous, but no light." It is possible to go on in 
this case, with a train of diction which may sound 
well enough, and even look fine, while it conveys no 
definite conceptions. 

58. Revelation explained hy science. — Effect of the 
application of astronomical science, or rather of the 
immense ideas derived from astronomy, to modify 



308 Foster's thoughts 

theological notions from the state in which divines 
exhibit them. 

59. An active mind, like an ^Eolian harp, arrests 
even the vagrant winds, and makes them music. 

60. Test of originality . — Have I so much original- 
ity as I suppose myself to have 1 The question rises 
from the reflection that very few original plans of ac- 
tion or enterprise ever occurred to my thoughts. 

61. Standard characters. — A human being like 
Edwin (the minstrel) would be the proper touchstone 
to bring into the routine of fashionable life, talk, 
amusements, &c. : what his feeling would nauseate 
is nauseous. 

62. Disparity hetween means and ends. — No scheme 
so mortifying as that which employs large means to 
accomplish little ends. Let your system be magni- 
tude of end with the utmost economy of means. 

63. To the Deity. — Give me all that is necessary 
to make me, in the greatest practicable degree, hap- 
py and useful, I feel myself so remote from thee, 
thou grand centre, and so torpid ! It is as if those 
qualities were extinct in my soul which could make 
it susceptible of thy divine attraction. But oh ! thine 
energy can reach me even here. Attract me, thou 
great Being, within the sphere of thy glorious light; 
attract me within the view of thy throne ; attract me 
into the full emanation of thy mercies; attract me 
within the sphere of thy sacred Spirit's most potent 
influences. I thank thee for the promise and the 
prospect of an endless life ; I hope to enjoy it amid 
the " eternal splendors" of thy presence, O Jehovah ! 
I thank thee for this introductory stage, so remark- 
ably separated by that thick-shaded frontier of death, 
which I see yonder, from the amplitude of the future 
world. 

64. Interesting reminiscences. — It would be inter- 
esting to look back on all the past of one's life, to 
Bee how many, and count how many, vivid little points 



MISCELLANIES. 309 

of recollection still twinkle tlirough its shade. My 
mind just now caught sight of one of these stars of 
retrospect, at the distance of sixteen or seventeen 
years. It was my once (in a summer evening, the 
sun not set) lying on iny back on the grass, and hold- 
ing a small earthern vessel, out of which I had just 
sipped my evening milk, between my face and the 
sky, in such a way that a few of the soft rays glanced 
on my eyes, and seemed to form a little living circle 
of lustre, round an eyelet-hole, through which I fan- 
cied visions of entrancing beauty. 

65. Deterioration of political institutions. — All po- 
litical institutions will probably, from whatever cause, 
tend to become worse by time. If a system w^ere 
now formed, that should meet all the philosopher's 
and the philanthropist's wishes, it would still have 
the same tendency ; only I do hope that hencefor- 
ward to the end of time, men's mind will be intense- 
ly awake to the nature and operation of their insti- 
tutions ; so that after a new era shall commence, gov- 
ernments shall not slide into depravity without being 
keenly watched, nor be watched without the sense 
and spirit to arrest their deterioration. 

66. Mutual I'ecognition of inferior animals. — I ob- 
serve that all animals recognise each other in the face, 
as instinctively conscious that there the being is pe- 
culiarly present. What a mysterious sentiment there 
is in one's recognition of a conscious being in the eye 
that looks at one, and emphatically if it have some 
peculiar significance with respect to one's self. A 
very striking feeling is caused by the opening on one 
of the eyes of any considerable animal, if it instantly 
have the expression of meaning. While the eye is 
shut the being seems not so completely with us, as 
when it looks through the opened organ It is like 
holding in our hand a letter which we believe to con- 
tain most interesting meanings, but the seal secludes 
them from us. 



310 Foster's thcughts. 

67. The lost teacMngs of cur Lord. — It seems a 
tiling to be regretted that so much of our Lord's con- 
v^ersation, consisting of momentous and infallible truth, 
should have been irretrievably lost. How much 
larger, and, if one may say so, how much more valu- 
able, the New Testament would have been, if all the 
instructions he uttered had been recorded. By what 
principle of preference were the conversations which 
the evangelists record, preserved, rather than the oth- 
ers which are lost ? That he did many things that 
are not recorded is distinctly said by John, last chap- 
ter, last verse. 

68. Disagreeable associations. — A very respectable 
widow, who lost her husband ten or twelve years 
since, told me that even now the last image of her 
husband as she saw him ill, delirious and near death, 
generally first presents itself when she recollects him. 
1 always think I would not choose to see a dear friend 
dead, because probably the last image would be the 
most prompt remembrance, and I should be sorry to 
have the dead image presented to me rather than the 
living. 

69. The rational soul of brutes. — Zealously asserted 
the rational soul and future existence of brutes. 
Their souls made of the worse end of the celestial 

•manufacture of mind, which was not quite fine enough 
to make into men. Various strong facts cited to prove 
that they, at least some of them, possess what we 
strictly mean by mind, reason, &c. 

70. Mode of addressing the Deity. — Struck lately 
at observing in myself with how little change of feel- 
ing I passed from an address to the Deity, to an apos- 
trophe to an absent friend. It was indeed a very dear 
friend. 

71. Due restraint in company. — The presence of a 
third person gives a more balanced feeling with re- 
spect to an individual that interests one too much. 

72. Figure of the darkness of reason. — Polished 



MISCELLANIES. 311 

Steel will not shine in the dark; no more can reason, 
however refined, shine efficaciously, but as it reflects 
the light of divine truth — shed from heaven. 

73. Value of observation af trifling events. — I re- 
member buying some trifle of, I think, a fruit-woman, 
in Ireland, who held me back the piece of money, 
and requested me, as it was the first money she had 
taken that day, to "spit on it for luck." I here re- 
gret having made no memoranda of the vast number 
of curious anecdotes, incidents, and odd glimpses of 
human nature, which one has met with in the course 
of years, and forgotten. 

74. An intrusive companion. — If a stranger on the 
road is anxious to have you for a companion, it is 
commonly a proof that his company is not worth hav- 

75. TJnperceived origin of images of thought. — 
Many images are called up in the mind by moral 
analogies which were not recognised before, that is, 
were not noticed with a distinct thought. 

76. Transmission of ignorant habits. — Conjecture 
after observing the habits and conversation of some 
rustics, that, superstition excepted, these are identi- 
cally the same as the habits, and commonplaces, and 
diction, of one or two centuries past. One thinks 
they could not have been at that time more ignorant, 
rude, and destitute of abstraction, than now, and cer- 
tainly the same causes that prevent acquisition will 
likewise prevent alteration.' The degree remaining 
nearly the same, the manner can not become much 
different. 

77. Deception of the senses. — What endless decep- 
tions of the senses may happen ! This morning I 
mistook one object for a totally different one. in pas- 
sing it many times within a few feet, till I happened 
to examine it, when in a moment the deception was 
destroyed. What a number of reports and recorded 
fact3 may be of this kind ! 



312 Foster's thoughts. 

78. Excitation of mind. — I do not long for this 
powerful excitation as an instrument of vain-glory. 
It is not a thing which, ambition out of the way, 
would give me no disturbance. No ; it is essential 
to my enjoyment. It is the native impulse of my 
soul, and it must be gratified, or I shall be either ex- 
tremely degraded or extremely unhappy; for I am 
unhappy in as far as I do not feel myself advancing 
toward true greatness. I feel myself like a large and 
powerful engine which has not sufficient water or 
fire to put it completely in motion. 

79. Thoughtless destruction of life. — I have seen a 
man, a religious man, press his foot down repeatedly 
on a small ant-hill, while a great number of the poor 
animals have been busy on it. I never did such a 
thing, never. O Providence! how many poor in- 
sects of thine are exposed to be trodden to death in 
each path : are not all beings within thy care ? 

80. Little interest of human beings in each other. 
— At an association lately, observed how little human 
beings as individuals interest one another, beyond the 
very narrow limits of relationship, love, or uncom- 
monly devoted friendship. There were several per- 
sons with whom I had been acquainted complacently, 
but without any particular attachment, several years 
before, and had not seen them for a considerable in- 
terval. We met, shook hands — " How do you do V* 
— " I am glad to see you" — " What have you been 
doing all this while 1" — with a mutual slight smile of 
complaisance, or of transient kindness, and then in a 
minute or two we had passed each other, to perform 
the same ceremony in some other part of the room, 
without any further recollection or care respecting 
each other. And yet these insipid assemblages of 
people from a hundred miles' di- tance are said to be, 
in a great measure, for the sake of affection, friend- 
ship, &c. 

So in London lately, my acquaintance might hap- 



MISCELL\NIES. 313 

pen, or might not happen, to make a slight inquiry 
about some subject deeply interesting to myself; and 
if they had happened, by the time that 1 had con- 
structed the first sentence of reply, the question was 
forgotten and something e-lse lidverted to. So does 
oneself in the same case; so every one doesj we 
are interested only about self, or about those who 
form a part of our self-interest. Beyond all other 
extravagances of folly is that of expecting or wishing 
to live in a great number of hearts. How very rea- 
sonahljj prohahle is the prevalence of Godwin's uni- 
versal philanthropy ! 

8 1 . Imperfection of the Jewish dispensation. — Why 
was the Jewish dispensation so strange, so exterior, 
so inadequate? Why? Would that the end of the 
world were come, to explain the proceedings of Prov- 
idence during its continuance ! But I perceive mul- 
titades around me, who know nothing of these doubts 
and wonderinffs. 

82. Scf -deception. — Perhaps you may think that 
vanity betrays me into a flattering estimate of my ca- 
pacity ; and perhaps it does ; but after having specu- 
lated on myself so long, I doubt whether speculation 
will now be able to detect the fallacy. It must be 
left to experiment. 

83. Uncertainty of the future. — Here I am now, in 
health, in a field near C , musing on plans for fu- 
turity. What a question it is, " How — when — where 
—shall I die ?" 

84. Fragment of a letter ., never sent. — INIy dear sir, 
J consider each of us as having nearly described a 
semicircle of life since I saw you last, and it is with 
great pleasure I anticipate the completing of the cir- 
cle in meeting you again in little more than a week. 
It would be amusmg for each to exhibit memoirs of 
the incidents and of the course. I was lately consid- 
ering what would be the effect of a law obliging each 
person to present, at appointed periods, a history of 

27 



J, c. derby"?? publications. 



JACK DOWNING'S NEW BOOK! 



•WAY DOWN EAST; 

OR, FORTRAITURES OF YANKEE LIFE. 

BT SEBA SMITH, ESQ. 

Illustrated, 12mo. Price $1. 

*" We greet the Major, after a long interval, with profound pleasure and re8p««t. Wei 
4« we remember how, years ago, we used to pore over his lucubrations on the events of 
the time — how he enlightened us by his home-views of the Legislature's doings, of the 
Gineral's intentions, and of the plans of ambitious Uncle Joshua. Here was the ' spot of 
his origin,' and around us were the materials from which he drew his stores of instructive 
wit. Therefore we, of all the reading public, do the most heartily greet his reappearance. 
We find him a little more artistic than of old, more advanced in grammar and orthography 
but withal displaying the same intimate knowledge of Down Eastdom, and retaining the 
same knack of genuine Yankee humor. In fact, taking all things together, no other 
writer begins to equal him in the delineation of the live Yankee, in the points where that 
individual differs from all the * rest of mankind.* This is his great merit as an author, 
and one which the progress of manners will still further heighten — for it is only in some 
portions of our own State that the real Yankee can now be found. 

" The present book has sixteen chapters devoted to home-stories. They are racy and 
humorous to a high degree." — Portland Daily Ad/oerUser. 

" It is now generally conceded that Seba Smith is the ablest, and at the same time tb« 
most amusing delineator of Yankee life who has hitherto attempted that humorous style 
of writing — not excepting even Judge Haliburton himself. This is no rash expression, for 
there is not a passage in ' Sam Slick ' so graphic, funny and and comical, but we find 
equalled if not surpassed in the sensible and philosophic, although ludicrous epistles, of 
* Major Jack Downing ' — epistles of which we defy the most stupid to glance at a para- 
graph without reading the whole." — Philadelphia News. 

♦• This is a book of real Yankee life, giving the particulars of character and in/ ridents in 
New England, from the Pilgrim fathers and their generations, Connecticut Biue Laws, and 
the civic and religious rules, customs, Ac, from the Nutmeg State away down East, aa far 
»8 Mr. Jones ever thought of going. It is a very laughable affair, and every family in aU 
Tankeedom wih enjoy its perusal." — Ringha/ni (Ma^s.) Jov/rnal. 

«' Thers are few readers who do not desire to keep up an acquaintance with the original 
Major Jack Downing, whose peculiar humor, while it is irresistible in its effects, is nevei 
made subservient to immorality. But these stories are an improvement on those originally 
given by the author, as they are illustrative of Yankee life and character in the good olt 
times of the Pilgrim Fathers." — Christian Advocate and Journal. 

" The stories are the most humorous in the whole range of Yankee literature, fiiU of 
genuine wit, rare appreciation of fun, and giving an insight into human motive which 
•hows the close observation and keen relish of life, of a good-humored philosopher."— 
Saturday Evening Mail. 

" A charmingly interesting book, this, for all who hail from Down East, or who like t« 
read Rood stories of home life among the Yankceg."— &ti«*» JSegiaief 

13 



J. C. DERBY S PUBLICATIONS. 



EZTSAORDINABY FUBLICATIOK! 



MY COURTSHIP AND ITS CONSEQUENCES. 

BY HENRY WIKOFF. 
A trae account of the Author's Adventures in England, Switzerland, and 
Italy, with Miss J. C. Gamble, of Portland Place, London. 1 elegant 
12mo. Price, in cloth, $1 25. 

The extraordinary sensation produced in literary circles by Mr. Wikoff's charming 
romance of real life, is exhausting edition after edition of his wonderful boolc. From 
lengthy reviews, among several hundred received, we extract the following brief notices 
of the press : 

" We prefer commending the book as beyond question the most amusing of the season; 
and we commend it without hesitation, because the moral is an excellent one." — Albion, 

" With unparalleled candor he has here unfolded the particulars of the intrigue, taking 
the whole world into his confidence — ' bearing his heart on his sleeve for daws to pec^ 
at ' — and, in the dearth of public amusements, presenting a piquant nine days' wonde 
for the recreation of society."—^. Y. Tribune. 

" The work is very amusing, and it is written in such a vein that one cannot refrain 
from frequent bursts of laughter, even when the Chevalier is in positions which might 
claim one's sympathy." — Boston Evening Gazette. 

" A positive autobiography, by a man of acknowledged fashion, and an associate of 
nobles and princes, telling truly how he courted and was coquetted by an heiress in high 
life, is likely to be as popular a singularity in the way of literature as could well be thought 
of." — EoTne Journal. 

" The ladies are sure to devour It. It is better and more exciting than any modei'Q 
romance, as it is a detail of facts, and every page proves conclusively that the plain} 
unvarnished tale of truth is often stranger than fiction." — Baltimore Dispatch. 

" The book, therefore, has all the attractions of a tilt of knight-errants — with this addi- 
tion, that one of the combatants is a woman — a species t)f heart-endowed Amaion."— 
Newark Daily Mercury. 

*• If you read the first chapter of the volume, you are in for ' finis,' and can no mora 
stop without the consent of your will than the train of cars can stop without the content 
of the engine." — Worcester Palladium,. 

" Seriously, there is not so original, piquant and singular a book in American literature 
Its author is a sort of cross between Fielding, Chesterfield, and Rochefoucault." — BoeUm 
(Jhronicle. 

" With the exception of Rosseau's Confessions, we do not remember ever to hav* heard 
of any such self-anatomization of love and the lover." — N. Y. Express. 

** The book has cost us a couple of night«' sleep; and we have no doubt it hai oaft Ita 
anthor and principal subject a good manytoore." — N. Y. Evening Mirror. 

" The work possesses all the charm and fascination of a continuous romance.**— Jf. Y. 
4owmal of CoTmnerce. 



J. c. derby's publications. 



"IT IS A LOVE TALE OF THE MOST ENTRANCING KIND." 

Boston Daily Traveller, 

*WHO IS THE ATJTH0K1 WE GUESS A LADY/'-iV^. Y. Life lUu^trated. 



ISORA'S CHILD. 

1 large 12ino. volume. Price $1 25. 

•* It is one of those few books of its class that we have read quite through — for we found 
«t to have the requisites of a good book, namely, the power of entertaining the reader to 
the end of the volume. The story is not complex, but is naturally told; the characters 
jire drawn with isliarp delineation and the dialogue is spirited. It is something to add, in 
the present deluge of bad books with pleasant names, both the morals and ' the moral ' of 
me worK are unexceptionable. It is understood to be the production of a lady whose 
name is not unknown to the reading public; and we congratulate her on the increase of 
reputation which * Isora's Child ' will bring her when her present incognito shall be 
removed." — BarUngton (Vt.) Sentinel, 

"This book starts o£f with its chapter first, and introduces the reader at once to the 
heroes and incidents of the really charming story. He will speedily find himself interested 
as well by the graceful style and the skill with which the dififerent scenes are arranged, 
as by the beauty of the two principal ciiaracters, and the lessons of loving faith, hope, and 
patience, which will meet him at the turning of almost every leaf. This is one of the best 
productions of its kind that, has been issued this season, and promises to meet With 
warm approval and abundant success." — Detroit Daily Democrat. 

" Anothei' anonymous novel, and a successful one. There is more boldness and origt' 
nality both in its conception and in its execution than in almost any work of fiction we 
iave lately read. Its characters are few, well delineated, and consistently managed, 
."here is no crowding and consequent confusion among the dramatis personce. There 
ire two heroines, however. Flora and Cora, both bewitching creatures, and, what is 
jetter, noble, true-hearted women, especially the former, Isora's child — the dark-eyed and 
i>assionate, but sensitive, tender, and loving daughter of Italy. The work will make it» 
LBark. Who is the author? tVe guess a lady, and that this is her first book." — Weekly 
Life Illustrated. 

"Its incidents are novel and eflfectively managed; and its style possesses both earnest 
vigor and depth of pathos, relieved by occasional flashes of a pleasmg and genial humor. 
Among the crowd of trashy publications now issued from the press, a work as true to 
nature, and as elevated and just in its conceptions of the pu/poses of life, as this is, is all 
the nore welcome because it is so rare. We have no doubt it will be as popular as it is 
interesting." — Albany Evening Journal. 

" We have seldom perused a work of fiction that gave us more real pleasure than 
this. From first to last page, it enchains the attention, and carries your sympathies 
along with the fortunes of the heroine. The descriptive powers of the unknown authoress 
are of the loftiest order, and cannot fail of placing her in the first ranks of authorship.'i 
^-Cincinnati Daily Sun. 

" A story which perpetually keeps curiosity on the alert, and as perpetually baffl<;s K 
till it reaches its d6noument. is certainly a good one."— Bt{jl/^alo Oommetvial AdveriM^r, 



J. C. DERBY'S FUBLlCAriONS. 



•'Bell's sketches are instinct with life, they sparkle with hrilliaata, are gei 
med with wit, and address themselves to almost every chord of the hnnu m 
heart." — Louisville {Ky.) Bulletin. 



BEl.L SMITH ABROAD. 

A Handsome 12mo. volume. Price $1 00. With Illustrations b}^ >jq.\j, 
"Walcutt, and Overarche 

"The readers of the Louisville Journal need no introduction from us to Beli Smith. 
Her own brilliant pen, and her own sparkling, witching and delightful style have so often 
graced the columns of this paper, and have made so many friends and admirers for her, 
that we need say but little toward creating a demand for this charming volume. But 
Bome tribute is nevertheless due to Bell Smith for the real pleasure she has imparted in 
every chapter of her book, and that tribute we cheerfully pay. Her admirable powers 
l>eem so much at home in every variety and phase of life, that she touches no subject 
"**bout making it sparkle with the lights of her genius." — Louisville Journal. 

She is ever piquant in her remarks, and keen from observation ; and the result \e 
iiat her ' Abroad' is one of the most interesting collections of incident and comment, fun 
jind pathos, seriousness and gossip, which has ever fallen under our notice." — Boston 
Evening Tro/veller. 

" It is dashing and vigorous without coarseness — animated with a genial humor- 
showing acute and delicate perceptions — and sustained by a bracing infusion of common^ 
■ense." — -V. Y. Tribune 

"There are many delicate strokes, and not a little of that vivacity of desoription 
which entertains. The author shows her best side when matters of home-feeling and 
affection engage hei- pen." — N. Y. Evangelist. 

" History, art and personal narrative are alike imprinted in your memory by the asso- 
ciations of anecdote, merry and grave, and you feel that you are listening to the magical 
Toice of ' Bell Smith' at home Such volumes enrich and honor American literature."— 
PhU^ideliyhia Merchant. 

" This is a capital book ; full of life, spirit, vivacity and information — thoroughly lady- 
like, and telling precisely what everybody wants to hear, so far as the author knows." — 
Salem Gazette. 

♦' Spirited and artistic! Bell Smith sparkles, and dashes on, amusing and interestingr 
A capital book for a leisure hour or railroad travel, or for those seasons when you wani 
to be pleased without eflfort " — Cleveland Leader. 

" We like Bell Smith and Bell Smith's book. A lively, free, dashing style, she talks 
an, and nothing is wanting but the merry laugh we know she is owner of to make us 
ihink we are listening to a very interesting woman ." — Chicago Journal. 

•'Lively, gpssiping, chatting, witty, sparkling Bell Smith, we must confess your book 
eas quite enchanted us." — N. Y. Day Book. 

"In freshness, piquancy, and delightful episodes, illustrative 6f foreign life »'»d ma*. 
oers, they nave rarely been e ;uaUed." — X^thoial Era. 



J c. derby's publications. 



THK aREEN MOUNTAIN TRAVELLERS' 
ENTERTAINMENT. 

BT JO 81 A E BARNES, SEK, 

12mo. $1. 

" They will be read with earnest sympathy and heartfelt approval by all who enjoj 
quiet pictures of the homely, yet often charming scenes of daily life. The style well 
befits the thoughts expressed, and is equally simple and impressive. We have found in 
these pages better than a ' traveller's entertainment '— one whicTn will mingle with th* 
pleasant recollectiuns of a home fireside." — Providence Daily Post. 

*' If any of our friends wish to get hold of a book written in a style of pure and beau- 
tiful English, that reminds one of Irving continually ; a book rich with inventions of the 
marvellous, and yet abounding in sweet humanities and delicate philosophies — a book 
that will not tire and cannot oflfend, let them go to a bookstore and buy ' The Old Inn ; 
or, the Travellers' Entertainment,' by Josiah Barnes, Sen. It will pay the reader well.*' 
— Springfield (Mass.) Republican. 

"It should be praise enough to say that tne author reminds one occasionally ol 
Irving." — Philadelphia Bulletin. 

" Unless we err greatly, a volume so markedly original in its outline and features will 
attract a large share of attention." — Boston Evening Gazette. 

" This is a very pleasant book. The plan of it, if not new, is just as well carried out 
Five 'r six 'r half-a-dozen ' travellers meet at an indiflferent tavern in an indififerent 
part of Vermont, upon a seriously unpleasant day, and to pass away the dull hours, they 
fall to story-telling. The record of their performances in that behalf is made up into tha 
volume ' above entitled.' So itgreeable became the diversion that not only the evening 
of the first day, but as the following morning was conveniently stormy, the second day 
is consumed in similar diversions. Those who read the book will agree with us, that a 
•tormy f'ay and a country inn, with such alleviation, presents no very great hardship to 
ihe traveher, unless his business is particularly urgent. We commend the'book to those 
<ho like a (feasant story, pleasantly told." — Budget, Troy, N. Y. 

" Under the above title we have several interesting stories as told by the varloms ch»» 

icters at tne fireside of a comfortable, old fashioned inn, to while away the long houra 

» storm, bj which they were detained The Little Dry Man's, the supposed Lawyer's, 

Aud the Quaker's stories are all worth listening to. They are well told and entertain the 

rt.ider." — Bangor Journal. 

♦♦ This is a series of stories, supposed to be related to while away the time, in an old 
inn, where a party of travellers are storm-stayed, consisting of the ' Little Dry Man's 
Btory,' the ' Supposed Lawyer's Story,' ' Incidents of a Day at the Inn,' the ' Quaker's 
Story,' and ' Ellen's Grave.' The stories are well told. There is a charming simplicity 
in the author's style — all the more delightful, because, now-a-days, simplicity of lan- 
guage is a rarity with authors. It is a book to take up at any moment, and occupy a 
leisure hour — to lay aside, and take up again and again. We commend its tone, an4 
the object of the author. It is a pleasant companion on a country journey." — N, W 
Dispatch. 



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